


A Series of Incredible Events 3

by RockSunner



Series: A Series of Incredible Events AU [3]
Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket, The Incredibles (2004)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Crossover, Gecko Ending, Gen, Government Conspiracy, Government Experimentation, Renamed Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 21:33:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 34
Words: 35,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14246205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockSunner/pseuds/RockSunner
Summary: Sequel to "A Series of Incredible Events" and "A Series of Incredible Events 2," an AU which combines The Incredibles with Series of Unfortunate Events. In the finale, the Incredibles face the final villain and learn horrifying secrets.





	1. Book the 8th, The Horrible Hospital

There is a famous newspaper in New York that has the motto, "All the news that's fit to print." This is a praiseworthy aim, though impossible practically speaking. With the limited number of pages a newspaper produces each day, all the news that's fit to print won't fit in print. But there is also a not-so-famous newspaper printed in the town of Municiberg where I live, called "The Daily Punctuation," and it doesn't begin to live up to such a motto. Instead, it prints all the rumors, lies, and accusations against innocent people that will fit in print.

For example, take the case of the unfortunate Parr children. All three were good, intelligent children who possessed super-powers. Violet, the oldest at 14, could turn invisible and project purple-tinged force-fields. Dash, the middle child at 10, could run at super-speed and had extremely fast reflexes. Jack-Jack, who was still an infant, could morph into anything he touched and had recently manifested powers of levitation, teleportation, and walking through walls when he was under the inspiration of classical music, especially Mozart.

These three children were now on the run from the law as a direct result of a story printed in the "Daily Punctuation" that accused them of being supervillains. The children had just been reunited with their parents, Bob (Mr. Incredible) and Helen (Elastigirl) Parr, who had been lost at sea after being kidnapped by the evil Count Buddy (also known as the supervillain Syndrome). Nevertheless, their lives continued to be most unfortunate and sad, so the reader may decide that these stories are unfit to print, or at least unfit to read, and seek more cheerful stories about ponies instead.

The family was standing together on the Brainy Beach, where the children had found their parents washed ashore. The children had just escaped from the village of V.F.D. (Villainous Fowl Devotees), which was actually an internment camp for supervillains. They and their friends the Rydingder Triplets had gotten away in a tunneling machine operated by Hector, a reformed supervillain whose nom de crime had been Bomb Voyage. Now the Rydingers and Hector were on their way to join up with the real V.F.D., an underground supers organization. The Parrs had decided to go into hiding until they could clear their names.

"Our next problem is clothes," Helen Parr said. "You children have those grubby work overalls, but your father and I only have these bright-red super costumes. We can't go around looking like this when we're trying to hide from the law."

Violet fished into a large pocket of her overalls and brought out a rumpled pinstriped suit. "Esmé Sansweet bought suits for us because she said pinstripes were in. Mine was way too big for me but I kept it just in case. Maybe you could wear it?"

"It's a little small for me, but I can stretch into it," Helen said. She pulled the suit on and redistributed her mass. She looked a little heavy or possibly pregnant when she squashed down to fit into it, but it worked.

"What about me?" asked Bob Parr.

"Fitting you is going to be a problem," said Helen.

"Hey, I'm not fat. I've been working out," said Bob. He pulled in his stomach.

"I know you have, dear, but you're still a big man," said Helen. "Violet, Dash, and I will go look for something for you. You stay with Jack-Jack and hide if anyone comes."

Mr. Incredible grumbled but agreed. Helen, Dash, and Violet started walking along the sidewalk near the beach, checking out the storefronts.

"Last Chance General Store," said Dash, reading a sign. "We Have Everything, And Everything Must Go."

The store did indeed seem to have everything. There were buckets, stepladders, xylophones, refrigerators, and bongo drums on the front porch. Signs on the windows advertised myriads of other items inside.

"We'll try here," Helen said.

"Do you have any money?" Violet asked.

"No," said Helen, "We'll have to take things now and pay them back later."

The children's mouths dropped open in surprise.

"I'll distract the clerk while you check out the aisles at super-speed," Helen told Dash. "Try to find clothes large enough to fit your father and hide them outside."

"But you always said shoplifting was wrong," Violet protested.

"I know what I said. Listen to what I'm saying now," said Helen sternly. "We're in a tough spot and we have to be more flexible."

"Easy for you to say," muttered Dash.

As they entered the store, the proprietor called out, "Is that you with the morning paper, Lou?" The man walked out from behind the counter of the cluttered store and came to meet them. He was a short, elderly man with a bushy mustache, wearing several shirts and hats at once, all with price tags on them. He was carrying a plate of fresh blueberry muffins.

Violet recognized him as one of the two elderly gentlemen who had witnessed their downtown battle with Syndrome's killer robot, the Omnidroid. He had commented that it was just like the good old days. Fortunately, he didn't seem to recognize the children without their costumes and masks.

"Sorry, I thought you were Lou," the man said. "I'm expecting this morning's 'Daily Punctuation'. There's supposed to be a story about supervillains at large in the city. Exciting times in this town again - just like the good old days."

The Parrs' hearts sank, because they had already seen the front page and it showed their faces as the 'supervillains at large'.

"Maybe they aren't really supervillains," said Violet.

"If the paper says they are, then that's what they are," said the old man stubbornly. "Now, what can I do for you folks?"

"I'd, umm, like to send a telegram," said Helen.

"There's a self-service telegram machine right over in the corner," said the store owner, leading the way. "Here kids, have a muffin to eat while I show your mother how to send a telegram."

Dash lost no time. As soon as the man was out of sight, he scarfed down the muffin and began zooming through the store, looking for large-sized men's clothing. It took several passes because the store was crammed with all sorts of things, from shelves of canned asparagus to crates of peacock feathers to stacks of old phonograph records. Finally he found a pile of large-sized mens coats and pants. Just as Dash was sprinting for the door with the clothes, the way was blocked by a tall, elderly man carrying a stack of newspapers.

Violet saw the situation and generated a small force-field to nudge the man gently from behind, leaving just enough space for Dash to zip through. Then she hid down one aisle, took off her overalls, and became invisible.

"Wooh, bit of a breeze just now, Milt!" the man said. "Lucky I got in the door or my papers would've blown away. There's a crowd of folks gathering out on the street and they'd had gotten my papers for free."

"Those are just the Volunteers Fighting Disease," called Milt. "They never read the newspapers. Good folks, though. They go every day to Hemoglobin Hospital to cheer up the sick."

Milt came walking back to the front of the store. "Let me see one of those papers, Lou. I want to read about the supervillains."

"Yep, there's supervillain children on the loose," said Lou. "Here's their pictures."

"Them?" said Milt when he saw the pictures. "Those are the same supers we saw fighting the robot. Remember? Just like the good old days, I told you."

"It says in here that was just a publicity stunt. They're supervillains, all right," said Lou.

"You know what? They just came in here! I gave them blueberry muffins," said Milt.

"You should've called the police, not fed them muffins," said Lou.

"I didn't know," said Milt. "There was a woman with them too, and I thought she was their mother."

"That was probably the supervillain Bomb Voyage in disguise," said Lou. "It says here they were seen with him."

"Wow!" said Milt. "I'm calling the police right away. You block the door and don't let them escape!"

"Me, stop a gang of supervillains? I'm not so sure about that!" said Lou nervously.

But he needn't have worried. While they were talking, Violet had slipped by them invisibly and Helen had stretched up to crawl over their heads on the ceiling and then slipped around the bottom of the door. All three Parrs had gotten away.

The two old friends called the police and then sat down together on the doorstep to read all the lies that would fit in print in the "Daily Punctuation."


	2. Helpfulness

Helen, Violet and Dash rejoined Bob and Jack-Jack at the beach. They gave Mr. Incredible the clothes they had taken and he quickly put them on.

"Dad, they called the police," said Dash. "We need to get out of here before they spot us."

"What happened to the tunneling machine?" Helen asked.

"I thought someone might spot it and come to investigate, so I pushed it back underground and buried it while you were gone," said Bob. He said this casually, because it was normally an easy feat for someone with his enormous strength, but he looked a little pale and out of breath.

"I know how we can get out of here," Dash said. "There's a bunch of people getting together to go to Hemoglobin Hospital. We can join up with them. They're called the Volunteers Fighting Disease."

"Won't they recognize you three?" Bob asked.

"The man at the store said they never read the newspapers," Violet said.

"Igno!" said Jack-Jack.

The family mingled with the crowd of people who were getting into vans.

Bob introduced them. "Hi, I'm Bob Smith and these are my wife and kids. We'd like to join the Volunteers Fighting Disease."

The bearded man with a guitar that Bob was talking to held up a hand. "No names in the V.F.D. We're all brothers and sisters here. Everyone's equal."

"Come on, hop in," said a woman who was already in the back of the van.

As soon as the van began to move, the guitar-player began strumming and led the group in a song.

"The Vigilante Fighters Down  
Made supers disappear  
And now we fight against disease  
As happy volunteers!"

There were several silly verses about singing to people who cough up bile and trying to make them laugh. Finally they stopped for some "cheerful conversation."

"Excuse me," Violet said, "What did you mean about making supers disappear?"

"It was before your time, little sister," said the man with the guitar, "But there used to be supers all over the country. We protested against them as the 'Vigilante Fighters Down' and got them banned. Then we wanted to stay together and work for another good cause, so we formed the Volunteers Fighting Disease."

"What did you have against supers?" Dash asked.

"They were terrible," one woman said. "They flaunted their super-powers and made all the ordinary people feel bad about themselves."

"So you think nobody should be better at anything than anyone else?" Violet asked.

"That's equality, sister," said the man with the guitar.

"Bergeron!" said Jack-Jack, which meant, "If everyone was 'equal' that would be a terrible world."

"Supers had to be sued," said another man. "They broke the rules just because they had the power to get away with it."

"I doubt they were that bad," said Dash, but he had a twinge of conscience because he had just used his power to get away with stealing from an old man who had given him a muffin.

"Superheros were the cause of supervillains," said the man with the guitar. "They got into big vendettas and innocent people got caught in the crossfire."

Violet remembered how their last few fights with Syndrome had gotten out of hand, but she spoke up anyway.

"The villains would have done a lot more harm without supers to fight them," she said.

"I can prove that's not right," said the first woman who had spoken. "After supers were stopped the supervillains just disappeared. They had no challenge any more, so they quit."

"That's because of places like the V.F.D.!" said Dash, thinking of the internment camp they had just escaped.

"That's right, little brother, it's because of groups like the V.F.D. that we don't have any heroes and villains anymore," said the man with the guitar. "But now we're the Volunteers Fighting Disease and we need to get real happy before we get to the hospital."

He began to play and sing again, and all the old volunteers joined him.

"Hear our happy tune.  
Have a heart-shaped balloon.  
Health is why we croon  
'Hope you get well soon!'"

The children noticed that their parents had not taken part in the conversation. Bob and Helen were leaning against the wall of the van, looking very ill.

"Are you all right, Mom?" Violet whispered.

"All that time lost at sea... catching up with me..." said Helen weakly.

"Me too..." said Bob.

When they arrived at the hospital they quickly ditched the volunteers and began to look for a place their parents could lie down and rest.

"Attention! Attention! I have an announcement," said a scratchy voice over the intercom, "This is Mattathias, taking over for Babs as the new Head of Human Resources. Babs has resigned effective immediately. She has decided to take up skydiving without a parachute."

"That voice seems a bit familiar," said Dash.

"Gount!" Jack-Jack agreed.

"Ssh!" said Violet. "He just said something we needed to hear."

"To repeat," said Mattathias, "There is a new streamlined admissions policy in effect immediately. We won't take identification and insurance information. Just pop people into rooms and we'll get it later. For example, be sure to admit the new patient who will be arriving in the Burn Ward in a few minutes without asking any questions."

"Perfect!" said Violet. "There's the Exhaustion and Exposure Ward over there. Mom and Dad, you can go in and they'll treat you even without any I.D."

"You'll... be all right... on your own for a while?" Helen asked.

"We've been taking care of ourselves all this time," said Violet. "We'll be just fine."

Had they but known of the horrible dangers of Hemoglobin Hospital, they might not have risked being separated. But as it was, Bob and Helen stumbled off to the Exhaustion and Exposure Ward to check themselves in.

"Now what do we do?" Dash asked the others.


	3. Historian

The Parrs looked around cautiously. They didn't want to loiter in the halls in plain sight because sooner or later someone who had seen the morning newspaper might notice them and call the police. They couldn't just run away now that their mother and father were being treated here. There was a new half of the building under construction, but they couldn't hide there now because it was full of construction workers.

"We need someplace quiet and out-of-the-way," said Violet.

"Biblio!" said Jack-Jack, which meant "Look at that sign over there!"

Violet and Dash looked and saw a sign pointing down a flight of stairs, "This way to the Library of Records."

"That seems perfect," said Violet. "Maybe we could hide there and pretend to be doing research for school."

"Unless the librarian has read the paper," said Dash.

"Jancit," said Jack-Jack, which meant "We'll have to take that risk."

The Hemoglobin Hospital was a large and confusing place, but the Library of Records was easy to find. They just kept going down the stairs until they reached the basement.

They knocked on the door of the Library of Records, and it was almost immediately opened by an odd little old lady. She wore a tiny pair of spectacles with pea-sized lenses she had to squint through to look at them.

"My eyesight isn't what it used to be," said the woman. "You appear to be three children. You must be the volunteers I asked Babs to send me this morning."

Dash thought fast. He knew from the intercom announcement that Babs had retired, and she probably hadn't passed on the message to her successor Mattathias.

"Yes," he said. "We're volunteers and Babs asked us to help you... umm... what do you need help with again?"

"I need assistance with filing records," said the woman. "My eyesight isn't what it used to be. My insurance company, Insuricare, was supposed to give me full coverage for eye treatments but now they won't. I wish that nice young man who helped me was still there."

"What was his name?" asked Violet curiously. Her father had worked at that company until a couple of months ago.

"You wouldn't know him. His name was Bob Parr. He had to pretend not to be helpful in order to keep his job, but he gave me directions to get form WS2475. I guess he was too helpful, because he doesn't work there any more and now they say I haven't filled out the form correctly."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Violet. She decided to ask her father if there was some way he could help with more inside information.

"But enough about my troubles. I'm Halley Hogenson, and I've worked here in the Library of Records for more years than I'd like to count. And you?"

"We're Volunteers Fighting Disease, so we don't use names," said Dash quickly. "Just call us brother, sister, and, um, little brother." It would be easier than giving fake names and having to remember them.

"The most important task in Hemoglobin Hospital is taking care of the paperwork," said Halley. "That's what you'll be helping me do."

She led the way through a small room with a bowl of fruit. "This is the antechamber. Feel free to eat some fruit if you get hungry during the day."

The next room was huge, low-ceilinged, and full of filing cabinets.

"We have historical information about everything, not just from Hemoglobin Hospital but from the whole area. Authorities drop information down a chute, and I file it."

"You must know an awful lot from reading all that," said Dash.

"Oh, I never read it. I just scan enough to decide on a keyword to file it under. For example, a while ago I received a file of snippets of information about supers and their secret weaknesses. I could have filed it under 'W' for weaknesses, or 'V' for vulnerabilities, or maybe 'S' for Snippet File."

"How would people ever find it again?" asked Violet.

"The authorities are coming tomorrow to get that file to use against the supervillains who are running loose," said Halley. "I'll just use this bunch of keys to unlock all the cabinets for the words it could be under until they find it."

She led them to the chute, which had a stack of papers under it already.

"I have been getting behind since I can't see well. I need one of you to take off the paper clips and put them in this bin, one of you to scan the papers and find keywords, and a third to help me open cabinets I've lost the keys for."

"Yo!" said Jack-Jack. He could morph his fingers to fit any lock.

They spent all morning helping Halley file. At the noon lunch break, Violet asked Dash to run up and ask their father about the insurance form.

After a fruit lunch they pretended to find a new note in the chute. "Mrs. Halley, this is information about how to fill in form WS2475 for Insuricare. You need to fill in parts A, C, and D, but not part B. How should we file it?"

"I'll take care of that one myself and file it under 'W'," said Halley, but they saw her stick it into her pocket instead, and they smiled.

Late in the day, just as they were going to close up, Violet whispered to Dash, "We need to get those keys and come back here tonight. I want to get that file on supers' weaknesses before the authorities use it against us."

"Halley will know if the keys are gone," said Dash.

"Not if we replace them with something," Violet said. "Jack-Jack, you've been handling locks and forming keys all day. Do you think you could mash bunches of paper clips into fake keys? Using real keys tonight will be faster than you having to morph keys."

"Greeble!" said Jack-Jack, which meant "No sweat!"

Things that are easy to do can be done without sweating, so this phrase here means, "It'll be very easy." In this case Jack-Jack was right.

Holding a few paper clips at a time in his hands, Jack-Jack morphed his hands into metal locks. The clips were crushed together into the form of fake keys. The Incredibles slid the keys onto a loop of twine that had come in around a bundle of papers.

"Good night, Halley," Violet said to the librarian. "We'll come back and help you again tomorrow."

As Violet shook her hand, Dash replaced the ring of keys on Halley's belt with the fake one, working at super-speed so she didn't notice a thing.

"Where to we go from here?" said Dash.

"We'll hide in the new half of of the building that's under construction," said Violet. "The workers will have gone home by now. Then, when things are quiet, we'll sneak down to the library and get into the files."

"Glomph!" said Jack-Jack, which meant "It'll be a piece of cake."

Cake is normally good and easy to eat, so this phrase here means "It'll be very easy." But cake is not always easy. I once encountered a piece of birthday cake that was poisoned and had a dynamite bomb inside. I'm afraid their mission was going to prove to be more like that piece of cake.


	4. Hunting

The Incredibles moved stealthily down the stairs to Library of Records. With Dash handling the unlocking they found the right key in a matter of seconds.

"Let's look in the S's first," suggested Violet. "For supers. Here's a filing cabinet marked 'Sunshine to Superstition'."

Dash found the right key and opened the cabinet. "Nope, not in here. What about 'W' for 'Weaknesses'?"

They ran to check. Jack-Jack took a short-cut by morphing to his strong metal form. He climbed over the metal cabinets, using the drawer handles for handholds and footholds. He couldn't read, but he was enjoying the excitement of the hunt.

It wasn't in 'Weaknesses' or 'Vulnerabilities'. They went back to the 'S' aisle to try 'Snippet File', but that wasn't it either.

"It might just be the name of one of the supers in the file," said Violet. "How about 'I' for 'Incredible'?

"Or 'M' for 'Mr. Incredible'", said Dash.

"Do you think secret identities are in there?" asked Violet. "Let's try under 'Parr'."

And that is where they finally found it. It had been a long search and they were starting to feel dizzy with tiredness when they pulled out the folder marked "Super Snippet File."

There was one piece of paper taped inside. It read, "This location has been compromised. The contents have been placed in the s.b. for safety."

"Ohh, how disappointing!" Violet cried. "We don't even know if it was the authorities that got it or not."

"Wait, there's a picture stuck under the note," Dash said.

The picture was a page of black-and-white portraits of superheros taken in the golden age. The Parrs recognized many of them from old clips on television: Dynaguy, Gazerbeam, Everseer, Splashdown, Universal Man, Apogee, Macroburst, Vectress, Phylange, Stratogale, and Plasmabolt. They especially recognized the three that had been circled in red: Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, and Psychwave. Seeing this last picture brought back a horrible memory; Psychwave had gone bad and she had mind-controlled Dash for a while in the guise of Dr. Orwell the optometrist.

At the bottom of the page, also in red, were the words, "At least one more survived."

"At least one more survived what?" asked Dash.

"I think it means they survived Syndrome's plot," said Violet. "I saw most of these people listed as 'Terminated' when I broke into Count Buddy's computer files. He pretended he had an out-of-control military robot and he called in supers to stop it, but the real plan was to kill them and to keep making new and improved robots as part of a revenge scheme against Dad."

"Ommigroid?" said Jack-Jack, which meant, "The robot we fought in the city?"

"That was the last and the best," Violet said, "We only beat it with inside information I found in Syndrome's files."

"And now they're calling it a publicity stunt," Dash said in disgust. "For him it was a stunt to pretend to be a superhero, but we really saved..." He awned, "Saved the city."

"We need to get out of here and get some rest," said Violet. She was starting to yawn, too.

Only Jack-Jack, who was still in metallic form, didn't feel tired. In metal form he didn't need to sleep or breathe.

"I've got to lie down... for a few minutes," said Dash.

"Me too," said Violet.

In a moment both had fallen asleep on the floor. Jack-Jack tried in vain to wake them. He was getting more and more worried.

The door opened and a woman wearing a hat with a veil over her face walked in on stiletto heels.

"All sleepin', Incredibles?" asked Esmé Sansweet. "Good, because I'm gonna kill you." Her voice was muffled by an oxygen mask she held to her face.

"Gooble?" called Jack-Jack, which meant, "What have you done?"

"Oh, the baby's still awake," said Esmé. "I should have waited a few more minutes, but it won't be long before you fall asleep."

"Greeble?" asked Jack-Jack, meaning "Why are you doing this?"

Esmé said, "I came down here to steal the Super Snippet File, hopin' to get evidence to prove Syndrome killed my first husband, Frozone. Instead I heard you rootin' around down here, so I went and stole a cannister of concentrated anesthetic gas and a gas mask. I released the gas into the ventilation system down here, and waited."

"Grobble?" asked Jack-Jack, meaning "How did you happen to come here at all?"

"Syndrome took over the hospital as Mattathias so he could get treatment for the burns you gave him at the V.F.D. village, little one. It was pretty dumb of him to try to stop you in his bare-chested detective disguise instead of his fireproof super-suit. I like what you did to him. But I'm still helpin' him kill you first because I hold you partly responsible for Monty's death. If I get you tonight I can catch him by surprise and kill him too."

Jack-Jack began to run in her direction.

"You can come after me, or you can save your siblings," said Esmé.

She pushed over the filing cabinets near her and they began to fall like dominos. There was a good chance they would fall on Dash and Violet and crush them so Jack-Jack had to run back to them. He wasn't strong enough in this form to stop the falling cabinets so he had to drag his siblings away.

Jack-Jack headed toward the chute where papers came in. He pulled Violet up on a table where she would be in less danger. He grabbed Dash by the collar of his super-suit and climbed with him up the chute to the fresh air outside.

Once Dash was safe, Jack-Jack climbed back down to help Violet. Nothing was left in the room but fallen filing cabinets. Violet and Esmé were both gone.

Jack-Jack raised his voice in the one cry of baby-language that needs no translation: "Waaaah!"


	5. Horror

Jack-Jack climbed back up and shook Dash awake.

"Vllt gon!" he said, meaning "They've taken Violet away and we have to find her!"

"Huh? Whussat?" said Dash groggily. The fresh air revived him and he quickly understood the situation.

"This is serious! Let's get Mom and Dad's help," Dash said.

Dash picked up Jack-Jack and they charged back into the hospital. Unfortunately, they found that both Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl were in a sound, drugged sleep. Both Dash and Jack-Jack together could not shake them awake.

"Attention, Attention!" came the voice of Mattathias on the intercom. "Dr. Tocuny and Nurse Budd, report to the Operating Theater immediately for an emergency cranioectomy on a fourteen-year old girl." Then there was a burst of muffled laughter.

"Ectmy?" asked Jack-Jack, meaning "What's a cranioectomy?"

"I don't know," said Dash. "But knowing Syndrome it's something really bad. I need to search this place top-to-bottom at super-speed. Can you get light and floaty so I can carry you easier?"

"Mozzrt?" asked Jack-Jack, meaning "Do you have any Mozart you could play to inspire me?"

"No, I don't," said Dash. "Here, try this."

He grabbed a heart-shaped balloon that the Volunteers Fighting Disease had left tied to the bedside table and let Jack-Jack touch it. Jack-Jack morphed into a balloon-baby. With the stretchiness he had just absorbed from his mother and the strength from his father, there was no danger of popping.

Dash and Jack-Jack zipped from floor to floor of the hospital, looking for Violet or any henchperson of Count Buddy's. Suddenly he spotted Syndrome's two powder-faced female guards walking along a hallway. They were disguised in doctor's coats and surgical masks. One of them was lagging a few feet behind the other.

ZZOOM! Dash charged into the woman so fast he carried her away from her companion, down the hall, and around a corner. She was unconscious before she knew what hit her.

"Can you morph to look like her?" Dash asked his baby brother.

"Gry," said Jack-Jack, meaning, "I'll give it a shot."

Jack-Jack touched her. It was his trickiest morph yet; he could look like a miniature version of her fairly easily, but that wasn't good enough. He had to apply all the stretchiness and ballooniness he had absorbed earlier to make a full-sized copy. He looked a bit like an inflatable doll, but when Dash dressed him in the doctor's coat and surgical mask which the woman had been wearing, the disguise was quite effective.

Dash shoved the powder-faced woman into a supply closet. Then he lifted the balloony Jack-Jack, zipped him close to the woman's original position, and climbed up under the coat. He managed to squeeze himself into Jack-Jack's squashy back without forming too much of an extra bulge.

"Don't dawdle, Budd," said the powder-faced woman who was in the lead. "You know Syndrome will be angry if we're late for this operation."

"Sorry," said Dash, trying to sound like a woman. His voice was muffled under the doctor's coat and it sounded enough like the voice of the powder-face woman's voice muffled by a surgical mask to fool "Dr. Tocuny."

Jack-Jack had barely begun to walk, so it wasn't easy for him to balance in this adult form. Dash helped with his own high-speed reactions, pushing Jack-Jack's legs from behind with his own legs.

They followed Tocuny to the operating theater. It was late, but a small crowd of doctors, reporters, visitors, curiosity seekers, and Volunteers Fighting Disease had gathered to watch this amazing new operation.

Violet was anesthetized on a wheeled gurney in the center of the room. Beside her stood two of Count Buddy's henchmen that they had run into before: the hook-handed man and the bald man with a big nose.

"Ladies and gentlemen," announced the hook-handed man to the crowd, "We are here to perform a history-making operation which has never been done before: a cranioectomy to relieve this young woman of her swelled head. I am Dr. U. Tuncboddy."

"Hooray for Dr. Tuncboddy!" cheered the audience.

"And I am Dr. Dubcutondy, the surgeon who invented the cranioectomy," said the bald-headed man.

"Hooray for !" cheered the audience.

"The two lovely ladies who have just arrived are Dr. Tocuny and Nurse Budd. They will perform the operation under our direction," said Tuncboddy.

"Hooray for Dr. Tocuny and Nurse Budd!" cheered the audience.

The bald-headed man handed "Nurse Budd" a rusty knife. "Go for it, Budd," he whispered. "Saw off her head before the anesthetic wears off!"

"I can see the headlines now," said a reporter in the crowd, "NURSE PERFORMS NEVER-DONE-BEFORE OPERATION UNDER DIRECTION OF SURGEON."

"First we should explain everything so we sound like real doctors," said Dash, trying to stall.

"All right, go ahead, but be quick about it," said the bald-headed man.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is a knife," said Dash. "It's used for, um, cutting things." His mind went blank. What else could he say about knives?

"Booh!" said the audience. "Get on with the operation."

"Are you losing your nerve?" demanded the real powder-faced woman. "Let me do it if you won't."

"Peeper wrk!" said Jack-Jack suddenly.

"What did you say, Budd?" asked the hook-handed man.

"Paperwork!" said Dash, interpreting Jack-Jack's idea. "The most important thing we do at Hemoglobin Hospital. No job can be completed until the paper work is done."

"You're right," called a doctor. "How could we forget the paperwork? Call Halley from the Library of Records at once!"

"You're ruining everything!" hissed the bald-headed man.

"No need for Halley," called a new voice. "I can clear this whole thing up."

It was Esmé Sansweet, and she had with her the powder-faced woman the two Incredibles had replaced.

"That nurse is an impostor!" Esmé said. "Here's the real Nurse Budd!"

"The game's up," whispered Dash to Jack-Jack. "Get ready for action."

Dash jumped down from the Jack-Jack's back and assumed a fighting stance. Jack-Jack morphed to original form and took a stance beside him.

"It's those killer supervillains, the Inconceivables!" yelled the reporter.

"We're not supervillains or killers!" Dash yelled back.

"I can see the headlines now," said the reporter, "VILLAINOUS KILLER KIDS ATTACK HOSPITAL, PROVE THEY ARE INCONCEIVABLE."

"Vizzini!" Jack-Jack cried, which meant, "Stop using that word. I don't think it means what you think it does."

Halley Hogenson burst into the room. "When I got home I checked my keys and I found out you tricked me," she said angrily. "I rushed back here and found my Library destroyed!"

"Sorry the filing cabinets got tipped over, Halley," said Dash. "It wasn't our fault. We're just trying to clear our name."

"You didn't just tip them over. You set the Library on fire!" said Halley. "I don't care what you do to clear your name. In my book you'll always be supervillains."

Dash didn't know what to say to that. There was no time, anyway, since the goons onstage and some bold people in the crowd were closing in.

The hook-handed man made a swipe at Jack-Jack, who decked him with a powerful blow from a fist on a stretched-out arm. Pleased with this, he sent more villains flying with elongated punches.

"Gow gow gow!" Jack-Jack said.

Dash knocked over the two powder-faced women with rapid-fire punches, then grabbed Violet's gurney. "Hop on!" he yelled to Jack-Jack. He ran the gurney down the hallway as fast as he could without tipping it.

"Attention! Attention!" came the voice of Mattathias. "Supervillains are running around the hospital. We must catch them and turn them over to the police. By the way, the hospital is on fire. The fire is spreading to the Nasty Rash Ward, the Stubbed Toe Ward, the Exhaustion and Exposure Ward, and the Accidentally Swallowed Something You Shouldn't Ward. After catching the supervillains, consider evacuating the hospital."

"Esposha!" said Jack-Jack, meaning "Mom and Dad are unconscious in the Exhaustion and Exposure Ward!"

Violet moaned and lifted her head. The jostling of the gurney was waking her up.

"Violet, are you strong enough for a force field? We have to get upstairs and I see fire ahead!" Dash said.

Just before they reached the stairs, the huge guard that could have been either a man or a woman leaped out at them. Violet put up the force-field just in time. The person bounced off of it and hit his or her head on the wall. Dash raced them all up the stairs through flames, protected by the force-field ball that enclosed gurney and all.

They passed two more walls of flame and then they were in the Exhaustion and Exposure Ward. It was filling with smoke and heat. Their parents were still in bed, unconscious.

Jack-Jack touched them again to recharge his strength and stretch. He encircled Bob and Helen with strong, elastic arms and lifted them up.

Flames were outside the door now, so the children headed for the window.

"Down nogo," said Jack-Jack, meaning, "We're too high up for me to break our fall with strength if I jump."

Instead, Jack-Jack stretched up to the roof and hauled the family out of immediate danger. He figured that they could look around from there and find the safest side to descend.

Nothing looked very good, but Syndrome's plane was parked on the roof with no-one inside. The children ran for the plane and hid behind boxes in the cargo compartment.

It was just in time, because Syndrome, Esmé, and the guards came rushing out of the building.

"Sir, we left a man or woman behind," said the hook-handed man.

"Forget it," said Syndrome. He sounded short-tempered, possibly because of the bandaged burns on his chest. "We've got to get out of here."

The plane took off, leaving the flaming hospital below. The Parrs knew they would get the blame. And yet, in a few things they really were to blame. Dash remembered how Halley had called them supervillains. The lines between heroes and villains were no longer so clear.

"Do you think we're villains, Vi?" Dash whispered to his sister.

"Villains lie, steal, and destroy things. We did a little of that, but our intentions were good," Violet said.

"Guddy too?" asked Jack-Jack, meaning, "Maybe Count Buddy thinks his intentions are good, too?"

There was no answer as the plane continued to race through the air.


	6. Book the 9th, The Charlatan's Carnival

The Incredibles were together again, but not in the best of circumstances. They had hidden themselves in the cargo hatch of Syndrome's jet in order to escape the blazing inferno - which here means fire - that had engulfed the Hemoglobin Hospital. Violet, Bob, and Helen Parr were just starting to recover from the drugs they had been given. Dash and Jack-Jack were catching their breath after the superheroic rescue they had accomplished which had saved the rest of the family from villains and flames.

The plane was now high in the air, headed only-Count-Buddy-knew-where. The children didn't know how they would get out of the cargo hatch, or if Syndrome and his goons would open the hatch when they landed, or if the jet was about to fly so high that it would make breathing difficult. All they could do was wait.

"Oooogh!" Bob Parr sighed. He blinked his eyes and looked around. "What happened?"

Helen also woke. "Last I remember we were in the hospital. How did we get here?"

Dash gave them a quick run-down of the situation.

"I'm going to try to listen to what they're saying," Bob said.

Bob crawled forward and with super-strong fingers tore a small hole from the cargo hatch into the main cabin of the plane. He put an ear to the hole.

It was hard to hear over the engine noise, but he caught a few words in Count Buddy's voice. "If they survived... find them... Madame Lulu... psychic."

There were mutters of disapproval from the rest of the crew, then a yell from Syndrome, "HER POWERS ARE REAL, I TELL YOU! NOW SHUT UP!"

Bob crawled back to the others. "Syndrome's going to consult a psychic named Madame Lola or something like that. He thinks she will help him find survivors, probably us."

"Psychics aren't real, are they Mother?" Violet asked.

"I knew a real one," said Helen. "Clairvoyance is a super-power just like being able to cast force fields. But most are fakes."

"I hope this one's a fake," Dash said. "A real psychic helping Syndrome would be terrible."

"Groof!" agreed Jack-Jack.

The plane came in for a landing on a flat field near a small collection of caravans and tents. It parked behind a stack of bales of hay. Syndrome, Esmé, and all the guards got out and walked toward the caravans.

Bob forced the door of the cargo hatch, being careful to keep the damage from being too obvious. The family got out and looked over at the encampment.

"Caligula Carnival," said Helen, reading from the sign on one of the tents. "That's the place I read about in the newspaper that needs new freaks."

"Still want to try that idea of disguising ourselves as freaks and applying for a job?" Bob asked.

"If we do, we might be able to learn if this place has a real psychic and what she told Syndrome," Helen said.

"Count Buddy disguises himself all the time," Violet suggested. "There may be a box of disguises and makeup in the truck."

They found makeup, wigs, and all sorts of odd clothing. Jack-Jack grabbed a fake beard and morphed himself into a furry monster-baby. Bob and Helen put makeup on themselves and the other two children.

Bob hunched over and said "Call me Hugo the Hunchback."

Helen contorted her body into an "S" shape. "Call me Collette the Contortionist."

Violet went invisible and removed her overalls and costume, then put the overalls back on and became visible again.

"Being able to turn invisible is handy for changing clothes," she said. "Here, Dash. Put this over your other clothes."

"What were we going to do, again?" asked Dash skeptically.

"I can make the costume invisible, and that makes anything inside it invisible. People will see nothing but your head. If you climb on my back and put your head on my shoulder we'll look like a two-headed freak."

They tried it and the effect was pretty good. Violet had to keep part of herself invisible to make it work. She chose a small part of her upper lip, so it looked like she had a cleft palette, sometimes called a "harelip."

"Now all you need is a scarf to hide where Dash's neck doesn't join to your body," said Helen. She dug a scarf out of the clothing box and wound it around their necks.

"Not bad, but Count Buddy's pretty smart," said Dash. "I doubt these'll fool him."

"We won't try them on him," said Bob. "We'll sneak over and talk to the manager after he leaves."

They moved out into the field and watched carefully through the grass until Count Buddy and the others returned to the plane. Nobody seemed to notice any tampering, because the plane took off again without incident.

The Incredibles went to the door of the main caravan and knocked. A woman's voice with a foreign accent called to them

"Who it is, please?" the voice said. "My Buddy back so soon? No, I sense is someone else. Enter, please?"

A woman wearing a turban was sitting at a table. She was broad-shouldered and had a rather plain, ugly face.

"Mr. Incredible, I see," said the woman. "And your entire family, including your three wayward children wanted by the police."

The Incredibles gave a gasp of surprise at being so easily recognized. This psychic was too good!


	7. Costumes

"You don't recognize me, do you?" the psychic asked Mr. Incredible. "Neither does Syndrome."

The psychic unclasped a metal collar around her neck. The Incredibles blinked as her face seemed to melt and shift. Now they saw a man with a high forehead and piercing eyes.

"Everseer?" asked Bob in surprise.

"Indubitably," said the man with a chuckle. He spoke in an educated voice without a trace of the accent he had used as Madame Lulu.

"Relax, everyone," said Bob, standing up from his hunched position. "He's an old friend from the golden age of supers."

Dash hopped down from Violet's back and became visible. Jack-Jack morphed to normal form.

"I thought you were dead," said Mr. Incredible. "Your name was one of the first on Syndrome's 'Terminated' list."

"As Mark Twain once said, the report of my death has been greatly exaggerated," Everseer said. "As a matter of fact, Syndrome completely failed with my super-team."

"The Phantasmics?" Helen asked.

"Yes. That is, myself, Macroburst, and Psycwave," said Everseer. "We kept in touch after the Super Relocation Act went into effect. Plasmabolt broke off contact with us."

The children gave a little start when the name Psycwave was mentioned, but Everseer was intent on his story and didn't appear to notice.

"Syndrome must have found one of us and then tracked down the other two," Everseer said. "He offered us the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to return to action secretly and stop an out-of-control military robot."

"He fed me the same line," said Mr. Incredible bitterly. "It was a deathtrap."

"Precisely," said Everseer. "It was his first robot and it had serious design flaws, but it was still more than a match for two mentalists and a young man whose only power was wind blasts. But Syndrome made the mistake of getting too close so he could watch the action in person."

"You picked up his thoughts?" Helen asked.

"Indeed, and I instantly came up with a plan which I relayed to the others by telepathy. We retreated toward one of the many lava flows on Nomanisan Island. The robot wheeled after us..."

"Weel?" asked Jack-Jack, which meant "It has wheels, not legs?"

"This first robot had wheels, a mistake I believe Syndrome corrected in later designs. Macroburst gave it an extra push with a wind-burst that rolled it into the lava. Psycwave and I beamed an illusion into Syndrome's mind that the robot had grabbed the two of us in its two metal arms and dragged us down into the lava."

"The one I beat was lava-proof," said Mr. Incredible with a touch of pride.

"Another design flaw he corrected, no doubt," said Everseer.

"We met Psycwave," said Violet. "She said she created the mental illusion and escaped alone."

"Protecting me, no doubt," said Everseer. "She's a fine woman; she was my partner in psychiatric practice before we founded the Phantasmics."

The children shuddered, remembering how that "fine woman" had mind-controlled Dash and tried to kill them.

"I sense you had a bad experience with her," said Everseer. "She did become a little bitter after that ordeal, and we've been out-of-touch ever since."

"What happened to Macroburst?" Bob asked.

"I read from Syndrome's mind that he was going to rebuild the robot and call Macroburst back for it to kill him, so I planted a post-hypnotic suggestion. We stowed away on The Kid's return plane..."

"The Kid?" Dash asked.

"I still call Macroburst 'The Kid' sometimes; he used to be my sidekick," said Everseer. "When The Kid got the call-back he was carrying a hypnotic device of my own invention. As soon as Macroburst arrived he triggered it and it made Syndrome fall into a trance and hallucinate that his second robot had succeeded in killing Macroburst. The Kid flew under his own power to where I was waiting with a boat. And that was that."

"That was that?" Bob asked. "Why didn't you defeat Syndrome and turn him in? It would have saved a lot of lives."

"My dear sir, remember we had broken the law by working as supers again. We had no wish to go to a prison camp," said Everseer. "No, our only recourse was to pretend to be dead, to go into hiding and make new lives for ourselves. As I have with this carnival, as Madame Lulu. And, I believe, as you also wish to do."

"Only temporarily, until we can clear our names," said Violet.

"Of course, of course. Now, I gather from your disguises that you wish to be freaks?" Everseer asked. "I've done well as a medium. With my mental powers and psychiatric background, it's easy to give people what they want. But the carnival desperately needs more freaks."

"How many do you have now?" asked Helen.

"One. You'll meet him in a little bit. But first, your disguises really need some assistance. Your faces are too well-known."

"What can we do?" Bob asked.

"I suggest you use my Virtual Facial Disguises. They're my own invention. They project mental illusions of a new persona. It's how I look like Madame Lulu."

Everseer reached into a drawer and pulled out several metal collars like the one he had around his neck.

"Here, put these on and focus on the person you wish to appear to be," Everseer said.

The family reached for them, and Everseer backed up, waving them off.

"Ah-ah-ah! Don't touch me with those dirty hands. Germs, you know. I can sense germs and they terrify me. Here, I'll set the rings on the table and you pick them up."

Mr. Incredible put his on. "I'm Hugo the Hunchback."

"Yes, you are Hugo, sad and beaten down by years of mockery because of your misshapen form," said Everseer in a hypnotic voice.

Before their eyes, Bob's face began to transform. He had a sad, beaten expression. His back hunched over. He looked nothing like himself.

"Now me," said Helen. "I'm Colette the Contortionist."

"You are Colette," said Everseer. "People hate and fear you because of the ways you can contort your body. You have become hardened to their disgust."

Helen's face became sharper, her eyes harder. Her hair looked coarser. She also looked very different from herself.

"Now you two children, assemble yourselves," said Everseer.

Violet and Dash put on the rings and got together as they had been when they entered the caravan.

"I cannot ask you to believe you actually have two heads," Everseer said. "But you have been mistreated, homeless, hated, chased from place to place because you are different."

"You've got that right," said Dash.

Both Dash and Violet felt the reality of these words sink in and their faces appeared uglier, scarred, and with a hunted expression.

Everseer looked down at Jack-Jack. "I don't have a ring to fit you," he said. "But your morphed disguise is already very good."

"Glootch!" said Jack-Jack, meaning "You'd better believe it."

Jack-Jack morphed back into a hairy monster. "Chabo!" he said, and growled.

"Chabo the Wolf Baby," said Dash.

Everseer re-clasped his own Virtual Facial Disguise ring. "And I am Madame Lulu, a poor old woman blessed and cursed with psychic vision, please. Always I give people what they want."

Madame Lulu pressed the button on an intercom on the wall. "Come to the main caravan, Freak Kevin, please."

"Who is Kevin, really?" asked Violet.

"Oh, didn't I tell you? He's Macroburst, please" said Madame Lulu.

A young man with unkempt hair and an unhappy expression entered the caravan from the back door. He looked very unlike Macroburst, who had always tried to keep his hair perfect in spite of the gusts of wind he generated. There was a ring around his neck also.

"Kevin?" said Violet in a deep, disguised voice. "You don't look freakish. What's your problem?"

"I'm the worst freak of all," he said sadly. "I'm ambidextrous."


	8. Carnies

"You're ambidextrous?" Violet asked Kevin. "That's a good thing, isn't it?"

"Are you kidding?" said Kevin. "I have two equally strong and dexterous hands. I can write my name just as well with both. And every day people laugh at me and throw things at me because of it."

"Oh," said Dash.

"I'm glad you've come, because now all the attention won't be on me," Kevin said. "Have you thought about what acts you're going to do?"

"Acts?" said Bob/Hugo.

"A good point, Kevin," said Madame Lulu. "What will all of you do to show off your deformities, please?"

"Easy for me," said Helen/Colette. She sat on the ground and put her arms and legs behind her head.

"Good, good, Freak Collette" said Madame Lulu. "Contortion looks very freakish."

"Grragh!" said Jack-Jack, crawling around and making mock biting attacks.

"That'll work," said Kevin. "You look violent, and the audience loves violence."

"I'm drawing a blank," Hugo said. "What should I do?"

"Try to put on one of those old coats hanging on the coat-rack, Freak Hugo please" suggested Lulu.

The coat was too small for Hugo; it tore like paper across his mighty shoulders.

"Excellent," said Madame Lulu. "Now you two-headed one - what names shall we call you, please?"

"I'll be Beverly," said Violet. "My brother can be Elliot."

"Why Elliot?" asked Dash.

"I don't know. It just popped into my head as the right name," said Violet.

"There is cold corn-on-the-cob left over from dinner in the refrigerator," said Lulu. "Let us see if it will look funny for a two-headed person to eat it, please."

Violet got the corn. It was tricky to hold it so both she and Dash could bite it at the same time. Dash's hands were up the long sleeves of Violet's invisible costume and he was using them to hold onto her back, so he couldn't help. They ended up getting corn all over their faces.

"Bravo!" said Madame Lulu. "The audience loves sloppy eating!"

Violet and Dash felt a little sick at the thought of performing this act every day in front of an audience and getting mocked for it.

"It is now late," said Madame Lulu. "Kevin will show you the way to the freak caravan, please. Tomorrow will be great debut performance, my freaks."

"Everyone really gets into their parts around here, don't they?" Dash said to Violet as they followed Kevin to the other caravan.

"What parts?" Violet/Beverly asked. "It feels almost natural to me... I've always felt like a freak."

"Sometimes I do, too," said Dash/Elliot sadly.

"Grragh!" agreed Jack-Jack/Chabo the Wolf Baby.

The "freak caravan" had enough bunk beds for everyone. There was also a dressing table with a mirror. Colette sat down at the table to brush her rough-looking hair.

"Would you help me brush mine, too?" Violet asked Colette.

"Do it yourself. I'm not your mother," Colette replied coldly, then gasped as she saw Violet's stricken expression and realized what she had said. "I'm sorry, darling, I don't know what came over me. Of course I'll help you,"

"Never mind," Violet said with tears in her eyes. "I'm tired and I'm going to bed. Get off my back, brother. Just because you're my 'other head' doesn't mean we have to share a bed."

The three Parr children had trouble sleeping that night. They had thought getting their parents back would make everything all right. But it didn't seem to be working out that way... not at all.


	9. Collars

Dash had a nightmare. He sat up in bed so fast that the clasp of his Virtual Facial Disguise collar popped open. He felt a little better until he fastened the collar again. Instantly he felt like a forsaken freak. He opened and closed the collar a few more times; the effect was the same each time.

He climbed to the top bunk and shook his sister awake.

"Violet, wake up," Dash said.

"Huh? What? Let me sleep!" said Violet.

"I found out something about the collars," Dash said. "They make you feel bad. I think we should take them off when we don't need them for disguises."

Dash flipped open the clasp of Violet's collar before she could react.

"Oh," said Violet in surprise. "I see what you mean. Maybe that's why everyone was acting so strange tonight."

"We should tell Mom and Dad," Dash said.

"Yes, but not now," Violet said. "They may need privacy."

"Why?" said Dash. An instant later he blushed and said "Oh."

But in the morning it turned out everyone had overslept. They had to rush to put on costumes and get ready for the show.

As they walked past the fortune-telling tent on the way to the freak-show they saw that Count Buddy was back, and no longer in disguise. He was talking in a loud voice with Madame Lulu.

"I'm paying you, all right?" Syndrome said. "I'm just having a bit of a cash-flow problem with my bank accounts frozen. So I brought you a new attraction for your carnival instead."

"But lions, my Buddy?" asked Madame Lulu. "How am I to feed them, please?"

Syndrome glanced over at the freaks, but he gave no sign of recognition.

"I have an idea about that," Syndrome said. "I'll tell you after the reading."

Syndrome and Madame Lulu disappeared into the tent.

Working in the freak show was even more horrible than the Parrs imagined it would be. People laughed, jeered, and threw things at them as they did their acts. They performed for one group after another for two hours; it felt like two days.

At the noon break, Beverley/Elliot and Chabo the Wolf Baby went into the fortune-telling tent. It was deserted.

"Let's check around inside anyway," said Dash. "Maybe we can find out what Everseer is doing for Syndrome."

"Graawl!" agreed Jack-Jack, which meant "Let's try to find out about the lions, too!"

Dash and Violet separated and unfastened their collars in order to search more easily. They found a motorized device for producing fake flashes of magical lightning, a glass crystal ball, and a whole research library of papers and notes hidden under the crystal ball table. There were tickets, old newspapers, a positive reply to an invitation to a masked ball (from Beatrice, alas), and many other papers.

"Look at this," said Violet, "A list of new students going to Prudence Preparatory School, with our names circled."

"I found Super Relocation Agency notes about sending us to the V.F.D. village," said Dash. "Madame Lulu has been helping Syndrome find us!"

"Why are freaks spying on me, please?" came the angry voice of Madame Lulu.

The children jumped up, startled. They jostled the table and the crystal ball fell. It would have shattered except that Dash's speed allowed him to grab it before it hit the ground.

"Why are you spying on us for Syndrome?" Dash retorted. "And you're supposed to be clairvoyant, but you cheat!"

Seeing they were undisguised, Everseer turned off his own collar.

"Yes, as a fortune-teller I'm a bit of a charlatan," he admitted. "My clairvoyance is unreliable, so I supplement it with intelligence and research. As for helping Syndrome, I help everyone. If I don't give people what they want I don't get paid."

"Did you tell him about us being here?" Violet asked angrily.

"No, I didn't do that. I said that I had picked up vibrations from the Mortality Mountains," said Everseer.

"Did you know these collars would make us feel bad?" Dash asked.

"That's merely a minor emotional side-effect," said Madame Lulu. "In time you'll get used to it, or resist it as I do."

"Grawwl?" said Jack-Jack, meaning "What was that business about lions?"

"That was Syndrome's idea to spark more business. This afternoon, we will announce that we are going to throw a random freak to the lions. People will pay anything to see something like that."

"That's horrible!" said Violet. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Since you're all supers, I'm sure that you can find an amusing way to defeat the lions," Madame Lulu said complacently. "But people will keep coming back and paying, hoping to see you fail, the way some people secretly hope that tightrope walkers will fall."

"You monster!" Dash charged at Everseer, but he wasn't standing where he appeared to be. The tent was deserted again.

"Come on, Jack-Jack and Dash," said Violet. "Let's get Mom and Dad and get out of here."

The re-disguised themselves and ran back to the freak caravan. Kevin, Hugo, and Colette were all there, talking among themselves.

"You just missed meeting Esmé Sansweet," Kevin told them. "She made us an offer. She said Madame Lulu plans to throw us to the lions. If we throw Lulu to the lions instead, we can join Count Buddy's group."

"Some offer," said Dash. "What has she got against Madame Lulu, anyway?"

"She says it makes her nervous to have a mind-reader around," said Hugo.

The children thought that was no wonder, since Esmé had secret plans to revenge herself against Syndrome for the death of Frozone, her former husband.

"We've been talking, and we think we might take her up on that offer," said Colette. "Are you with us?"

"What?" gasped Violet.

"It's my only chance to be somebody other than an ambidextrous freak," said Kevin.

"You're already somebody," said Dash. "You're Macroburst the superhero!"

"Did Madame Lulu tell you that?" Kevin asked. "Telling people what they want to hear is her stock-in-trade. Imagine me, an ambidextrous freak, as a super!"

"Maybe she wanted to fool you into thinking this carnival is a great deal," said Colette. "Did she tell you we were famous supers, too?"

"You are," said Violet. "Elastigirl and Mr. Incredible."

"You sure are rubes to believe that," said Hugo with a bitter chuckle.

"Gollers!" yelled Jack-Jack, which meant, "It's the collars!"

"You've got to take off those collars!" Violet said. "They're making you forget who you are."

Violet reached for the collar on Colette's neck, but her mother's elastic hand slapped her away.

"I'm not giving up this collar," said Colette. "It's the nicest thing I own."

Dash was about to make his move when both he and Violet were grabbed from behind by one powerful arm. The other arm grabbed Jack-Jack.

"I'm not going to let you trick us and mess up our chances," said Hugo. "The lion show starts in a few minutes."

The young Incredibles were helpless in the powerful grip of a man they didn't want to hurt because he was their father. What could they do now?


	10. Cats

There's a saying that what goes up must come down, and because of gravity that is normally true. But when applied to people's lives it need not be so. Some people seem to be up all the time, but in the case of the unfortunate Parr children, everything seemed to be going down and down with very little up. For example, at present they were being hustled to an afternoon's entertainment which would consist of either being thrown to hungry lions or watching someone else being thrown to hungry lions, and two of the people doing the hustling were their parents, who had forgotten who they really were. That felt very down indeed.

Violet was still wearing the scarf and the loose-fitting yellow clown costume with red polka-dots that she had put on for the freak show this morning. It seemed to her very inappropriate attire for being thrown to lions (if there is appropriate attire for that - perhaps a suit of armor would be best).

Dash was wearing his sister's invisible costume, so that the only thing visible was his head. This was handy for pretending to be part of a two-headed freak, but it made it difficult for him to go into action. If he stopped holding onto Violet's back, his costume would instantly turn bright red and his secret identity would be exposed. He might be willing to do that in a pinch - which here means "if the situation became desperate enough," but just at the moment he and Violet were already in a pinch, that is, held in the viselike grip of Hugo the Hunchback.

Jack-Jack was morphed into the hairy form of Chabo the Wolf Baby and he was held under the other arm of Hugo. But there was something he could do as they walked toward the lion pit. First, he absorbed power from Hugo/Mr. Incredible. Now Jack-Jack was incredibly strong. He used that strength to slip an arm free and touch Colette/Elastigirl, who was walking close beside Hugo. Now Jack-Jack could stretch. He carefully stretched out an arm and touched the back of Kevin/Macroburst without being noticed. Now Jack-Jack could create wind gusts.

Madame Lulu/Everseer came running up to them. "Hurry, freaks, crowd is waiting and growing restless, please!"

As Lulu moved behind them to hurry them along, Jack-Jack managed to stretch out a hand and brush it against her. It worked; Lulu was too preoccupied to notice. Now Jack-Jack had telepathy.

A large crowd, almost a mob, had gathered at the edge of a pit with nine hungry lions. "Feed the lions, feed the lions," they chanted.

Syndrome, his guards, and Esmé were there. Count Buddy was wearing a black business suit with a large white "S" on the lapel. He was giving an interview to a reporter from the "Daily Punctuation."

"No, the person who was killed by the child supervillains was Count Brody. I am Count Buddy. I supplied these fine genetically-enhanced lions to the Caligula Carnival. They are ultra-fast and ultra-strong, not to mention ultra-hungry. Even a super might have trouble with them."

"I can see the headlines now," said the reporter. "FREAK FED TO SUPER-LIONS SUPPLIED BY COUNT BUDDY, WHO IS NOT COUNT BRODY, WHO IS DEAD."

Sydrome noticed the arrival of the freaks and waved the reporter away.

"And now the moment we've all been waiting for," Syndrome said. "The freaks are here. Which one shall have the honor of feeding the lions? The envelope, please."

Esmé handed him an envelope with a folded paper. As Syndrome made a big production of unfolding the paper, Jack-Jack relayed a plan to his siblings using telepathy.

"Gaa goo diving board, gabbu H. G. Wells, goo gust geeg!" he told them.

"And the lucky winner is... Beverly and Elliot, the two-headed freak!" announced Syndrome.

The crowd cheered. "Feed the lions! Feed the lions!"

"Either you push in Madame Lulu and join us, or you're on your own," whispered Hugo as he let Violet and Dash go.

Violet walked forward onto the board that projected out over the lion pit. "My fellow head and I are honored to be chosen," she said.

"You are?" said Syndrome. "All right then, jump in. The crowd is eager to see violence and sloppy eating."

"Wouldn't the audience rather see someone push us in? That would be more violent," Dash said. "Why don't you come out and do it, Count Buddy?"

"I, ahem, I'm really allergic to cats," Count Buddy protested. "You do it, Madame Lulu."

"Me? I am fortune-teller, not lion-feeder, please," Madame Lulu said.

"Why not have one of the other freaks do it?" suggested Esmé. "They want to work for you."

"Really? All right, if they do they can have a job," said Syndrome.

"Let me do it," said Kevin. "I can push with two equally-strong hands."

"No, me!" said Colette, contorting herself toward the board.

"Me," said Hugo.

"It's my job to do the dirty work for Count Buddy," said the hook-handed guard. "No freak gets to do my job!"

"No, it's my job!" said the bald-headed guard who went by the name Dubcutondy.

"Somebody do it and get it over with!" howled someone in the mob. "I'm tired of waiting!"

A fight broke out between the freaks, Madame Lulu, Syndrome's guards, and the crowd. Everyone was pushing and shoving each other.

"Now, while they're all distracted," whispered Violet to Dash.

"Forget it, I'll jump. Here goes!" yelled Dash.

Violet raised her arms to cover her face, blocking the view of Dash's head from those who were still looking. Dash zipped down from her back at super-speed and gave the board a super-fast kick while holding onto Violet's legs. The board launched them both high into the air.

At the very top of the trajectory, Violet went invisible. Dash helped her strip off the scarf and the loose-fitting clown costume at super-speed and then ducked his head inside the invisible costume he was wearing. Now neither of the two could be seen.

All the eyes of the audience turned toward the bright clown costume which was falling on its own. It caught the air and puffed out like a parachute.

Dash and Violet weren't falling because Jack-Jack had created a gust of wind under them. Even though he couldn't see them, he knew exactly where they were by telepathy. He blew them away from the pit and they landed safely a good distance beyond the crowd.

Nobody was looking their way. All eyes were on the clown costume which had fallen into the pit; the lions tore at it. The audience gasped in surprise and confusion.

"What happened?" one woman asked. "What goes up must come down, right?"

"Dash, I need something to wear," said Violet. "Would you run back to the caravan and get my old clothes?"

Dash was back in an instant with her old overalls, a spare clown costume and a spare scarf. Violet put them on.

People in the crowd were beginning to yell. "Hey, what happened to the freak? Where's the blood? We wanted violence and sloppy eating and you gave us a stupid disappearing act instead!"

The mob began to riot. With all the pushing and shoving going on, nobody saw who pushed Dubcutondy and Madame Lulu into the pit.

Dubcutondy never had a chance. Everseer might have escaped, but something made him panic. His last words were, "Don't touch me! You've got germs!"

In the confusion, Jack-Jack used his strength and elasticity to slip free from Hugo's grip. He used wind control to fly over the heads of the mob and rejoin his siblings.

"Whoo!" Jack-Jack said, which meant "Whew!" He morphed to his normal form.

"Is that you, Beverly and Elliot?" came a voice from around the corner of a nearby tent.

It was Syndrome's voice, so Violet and Dash instantly re-formed the two-headed freak and Jack-Jack went back to being Chabo.

"That was some magic act," said Syndrome. "You'll have to tell me how you did it some time. I've decided you and your fellow freaks are worthy to join my troops. Here, take a torch and help me burn this place up. I want to destroy all the evidence I had anything to do with these deaths."

The three Parrs were very reluctant to do this, but they decided staying together with their parents was the best option. Hopefully they could get the collars off them soon and restore their normal minds.

After the arson, everyone got into Syndrome's plane.

"We're going to Mortality Mountains next," said Syndrome. "I have some unfinished business there."

They were flying high over the sheer cubical rocks of Mortality Mountains when Syndrome suddenly turned on "Beverly and Elliot" and zapped them with a paralyzing zero-point energy beam. He caught "Chabo" in another beam a moment later.

"Madame Lulu told me who you really were this morning," said Syndrome with an evil chuckle. "I've decided to keep the baby around a while to suffer, but I certainly don't need you two. I don't need any more sidekicks either, now that I have SynMan, SynWoman, and SynKid."

Syndrome pointed to Hugo, Colette, and Kevin and gave a huge guffaw. "Mwa hee hoo! Open the trapdoor, SynMan!"

Hugo pulled a lever and a trapdoor opened in the bottom of the plane.

"Thank you for flying the friendly skies of Syndrome airlines. You have just completed the safest part of your trip. G'bye!" said Syndrome.

With that, Syndrome used the zero-point beam to drop Violet and Dash out of the plane.

They were about to experience in person the fact that what goes up must come down.


	11. Book the 10th: The Slushy Slope

Violet and Dash were falling like a meteor toward rocky ground. If Dash hadn't already participated in a midair escape once that day, he might have panicked. As it was, he remembered how the clown costume they had dropped had caught the air like a parachute.

His reflexes went into overdrive. Just like the last time, he stripped off Violet's costume at super-speed. This time, however, he kept hold of it, looped the long silk scarf they were wearing around their waists, tied the ends of the scarf to the arms of the suit, and released it.

There was a sharp upward tug as the voluminous - a word which here means "having enough extra material to form a parachute" - clown costume caught the wind and slowed their fall.

By tugging on the scarf ends, Dash was able to steer them to a long, straight stretch of mountain road. They touched down inside a force-field ball, and Dash was able to run them up the road fast enough to kill their downward momentum.

Only then did they stop and take stock - a phrase which here means "stop and realize what a disastrous situation they were in."

"This is really, really bad," said Dash. "I can't believe Mom and Dad are helping Syndrome try to kill us."

"Their minds have been warped by the collars," said Violet. "Speaking of that, there's no reason to wear these any more." She tore her collar off her neck and stomped on it until it bent.

"Everseer must have known what they could do," said Dash, also removing and smashing his collar. "He was just as evil as Psycwave."

"Being able to control minds leads to exploiting people," said Violet. "I'm glad I'm not a mentalist."

"We don't need to be two-headed any more, Vi, so you can have your costume back," said Dash.

Violet put her old costume and overalls back on.

"Now what'll we do?" asked Dash. "Syndrome has Mom, Dad, Jack-Jack, and Macroburst as hostages."

"All but Jack-Jack think they've joined his gang. But Count Buddy knows who they really are," said Violet. "He'll play along while it amuses him. But then..." Violet drew her finger across her throat.

"Don't say that!" said Dash. "We've got to find them and help them. As we were parachuting down I saw the plane land on the flat top of this mountain."

"This road might take us there," said Violet.

"No, it didn't look from the air like it goes to the top. I saw a trail by a stream a little ways back there," said Dash.

They followed the stream, which was so choked with ash and pollution that it looked like the fish were suffocating. The trail was steep and rocky, so they couldn't use their normal rolling-ball running trick.

"Hey, what's that buzzing white cloud?" Dash asked. "Ow!"

He had been stung by a tiny white gnat. Violet started getting stung, too. She formed a force-field close around them and expanded it, shutting out most of the gnats. In a blur of motion Dash swatted the rest that were left inside. The gnats outside continued to swarm, looking for a way through.

"Now we're safe but it's hard to see," said Violet.

They pushed on for a while, stumbling at unexpected steep places. It was not easy going. Finally, they spotted a cave.

"Let's hide in there and maybe they'll go away," said Dash.

Once they entered the cave they caught a faint whiff of smoke. The gnats immediately darted away.

The two Incredibles moved deeper into the cave. Suddenly a voice called out.

"Go away, cakesniffers! This is a private Snow Scout party for me," came the unmistakable voice of Kari Melita Spats. Kari was a former friend of Violet's and a would-be babysitter of Jack-Jack's, but she had revealed a mean streak and a nasty temper when they were attending Prudence Preparatory School.

"Who are you talking to, Kari Melita?" said a man's voice.

"I see two shadows, Uncle Bruce," said Kari, "And I think they're cakesniffers."

It was easier for Dash and Violet to see the group of young people around the fire from the dark part of the cave where they stood. They also saw that everyone was wearing a fencing mask, concealing their features. They also saw spare masks hung on a rack on the back wall.

"Dash, could you zip over there and get us a couple of masks?" Violet said. "We don't want to be recognized from our pictures in the paper."

Dash did one of his too-fast-to-see moves and in an instant he was back with two masks. The two Parrs put them on and moved into the firelight.

"Hi, we're two lost mountain travelers," Violet said. "We were attacked by gnats and we hid in here to get away from them. The smoke seemed to scare them away. Is it all right if we rest here a while?"

"NO!" shouted Kari Melita. "This is only a camp for Snow Scouts who are going to crown me False Spring Queen."

"Why, Kari Melita," said the man who was leading the group. "We must be accommodating. Snow Scouts are..."

"Accommodating, basic, calm, daring, emblematic, frisky, grinning, human, innocent, jumping, kept, limited, meek, nap-loving, official, pretty, quarantined, recent, schedules, tidy, understandable, victorious, wholesome, xylophone, young, and zippered - every morning, every afternoon, every night, and all day long!" chorused all the Snow Scouts except Kari Melita.

"That's the Snow Scout oath. As I was saying, we are accom- uhm, that is, certainly you can stay," said the man. "I'm Uncle Bruce, the Snow Scout leader."

"I'm the False Spring Queen, and I say they have to go," said Kari Melita in a sulky voice.

"Not yet, not until we dance around the Spring pole tomorrow," said Bruce. "Tonight's the night we sit around the campfire, eat marshmallows, and tell stories."

"Why don't we ask the newcomers to tell us a story?" said one of the scouts who was wearing a knitted sweater. "I'd like to hear a Very Fine Drama."

There was something familiar about this scout and the initials in the words he was emphasizing. Violet and Dash decided to try the same thing back.

"This was a Very Frightening Day," said Dash.

"This afternoon we nearly had a Violent Feline Demise," said Violet.

"Then we had a Vertical Fall Down," said Dash. "And that's how we got here."

"Booooring!" said Kari Melita. "I've got a better story."

She proceeded to tell a story about how wonderful, beautiful. and talented she was, which was far more boring than the Parr's tale, so I'll omit it.

After the Snow Scouts had fallen asleep on blankets, the sweatered scout came over to the Parrs and whispered, "Come on, we have a mission to do."

"What?" asked Dash.

"Quiet," said the scout. "You'll wake Bruce. He used to work for Josephine E. Mode as a gate guard, and he spied on the supers who came there for costumes. I believe he also stole Frozone's collection of genetically modified reptiles."

"How do you know about Josephine Mode and Frozone?" asked Violet.

"V.F.D. training," said the scout. "I know you, too. Don't you recognize me?"

"Quigley?" asked Violet in delighted surprise.

Violet had been attracted to Quigley Rydinger at school for ages, but had never dared to speak to him. He had suddenly turned up during their imprisonment at the village of Villainous Fowl Devotees and helped both them and his triplet siblings, Duncan and Isadora, to escape. All three of the triplets had minor super-powers which had come in very handy: Duncan's shareable memories, Isadora's couplet cantrips, and Quigley's map-making and energy beam projection.

Quigley nodded. He pointed to a chimney-like rock formation in the back wall.

"Now we climb. We have a mission to the V.F.D. secret headquarters just above us," said Quigley.


	12. Slave

Meanwhile, Jack-Jack was still in the clutches of Count Buddy. He was extremely worried about what had happened to his siblings, but there was nothing he could do.

"Don't try anything," Syndrome whispered to him. "My people are under orders to shoot both your parents the instant they see you doing anything funny."

"Ghool," said Jack-Jack, meaning "You're a blood-thirsty monster."

"I can't understand a word of your babbling. I don't speak monkey," said Syndrome.

"Gibbon," said Jack-Jack, meaning "You're the stupid ape, not me."

The plane landed on the flat top of the mountain and everyone got out.

"Ok, little monkey, now you'll be our slave," said Syndrome. "You have to cook us a hot dinner or you'll be severely punished."

Jack-Jack still had a little of the telepathy he had absorbed from Everseer. He could read that Count Buddy wanted coffee and sandwiches. He could also read that Syndrome expected him to fail and was looking forward to punishing him.

Jack-Jack was so cold that it was hard imagine a fire, much less morph into one. Then a tiny bit of ash touched the tip of his nose and he realized smoke was in the air. That was enough; he filled a pan with pieces of mountain ice and flamed-on his hand under the pan. Soon he had the water boiling. He poured the hot water into cups and added instant coffee. He wasn't sure how much coffee to use, so he put four spoonfulls in each cup.

The sandwiches were trickier because all he could find was an old package of bacon. He soon got the bacon sizzling in the pan. To disguise the "off" flavor of the meat he added hot peppers and curry powder. There were several loaves of bread in the supplies, so he fried the bread in the bacon fat and made bacon sandwiches. There were no lettuce and tomatoes, so that was the best he could do.

Jack-Jack was a little surprised at his cooking skill. Perhaps he had absorbed it this morning from his mother. He served the food to the gang, saying "Gurry bac'n sanwiggees."

"Humm! It doesn't look too bad," said Syndrome. He took a big bite. "Yooow! There's too much hot pepper!"

"You said you wanted a hot meal, didn't you?" said Esmé with a suppressed snicker.

"I need something to drink," said Count Buddy. He took a gulp of the coffee. "Ugh! Too strong! Are you trying to poison me?" he asked Jack-Jack.

"Borgia," said Jack-Jack, which meant "I would if I could."

Syndrome scowled and sucked on a piece of ice. It looked like he was trying to think of a suitable punishment for Jack-Jack.

Just then, a man and a woman appeared from the trees, pulling a sled laden with documents and supplies. They both had a distinct aura of menace, so menacing that Syndrome forgot about punishing Jack-Jack.

"If you want hot, you should see what we did," said the woman.

Count Buddy rose to his feet. "Mom, Dad, it's good to see you," he said.

The man backhanded him across the face. "We don't permit anyone to call us by familiar names any more, not even you, Son. Call us 'The Man with a Beard and No Hair' and 'The Woman with Hair and No Beard.'"

"S-sorry," Count Buddy stammered. It was the first time Jack-Jack had ever seen him look afraid.

"It was bad enough when you idolized that Mr. Incredible," said the woman. "Then you went to the other extreme and decided on a flashy revenge of posing as a super yourself with his kids as your sidekicks."

"You let your lust for revenge complicate what should have been a straightforward contract," said the man. "You failed and now the government has frozen your assets."

"I know they did," said Buddy. "But what can I do?"

"Your best hope is to get your hands on the Super Snippet File and the sugar bowl," said the woman. "Nobody could touch you then."

"We've been looking for the sugar bowl all this time while we were burning down the V.F.D. headquarters," said the man. "It isn't there."

"Next we're going to burn down the Caligula Carnival," said the woman. "There are more secrets hidden there in a figurine in the souvenir shop."

"Don't worry about the Carnival," said Syndrome, "I burned it down today."

"You did?" said the man. "That's excellent work. As a reward, you may have the papers we found in the Headquarters."

He took a bundle of paper off the sled and gave it to Syndrome.

"The Super Snippet File!" exclaimed Buddy.

"Yes," said the woman. "All but one page that was left behind in the folder at Hemoglobin Hospital. The Parr children probably saw it when they snooped down there."

"We don't have to worry about the Parr children either," said Buddy. "I dumped two of them out of my plane this afternoon and there's no way they could have survived the fall. I'm keeping the last one as a slave for a while."

"Having an infant slave can be amusing," said the woman. "Just be sure to eliminate it before very long, the way I did."

The three villains retired into the plane to look over the documents, leaving Jack-Jack to wonder: what was in Snippet file, and what was in the sugar bowl?


	13. Scorched

Violet, Dash, and Quigley climbed the chimney passage, which he called a Vertical Flame Diversion.

"You've learned a lot in a short time, Quigley," said Violet admiringly.

"That's the advantage of attending briefings with Duncan," Quigley said. "He has a photographic memory and he passes memories on to Isadora and me."

Violet and Dash nodded. They remembered how useful that skill had been at Prudence Preparatory, where their teachers had expected memorization of meaningless messages and metric measurements.

"What's this mission?" Dash asked. "Did you know we were going to be here?"

"Only if the villains captured you," Quigley answered. "The rumor was that there might be an attack on the V.F.D. headquarters in the Valley of the Four Drifts."

"What's at this headquarters?" Dash asked.

"In the old days, the Volunteer Freedom Defenders recruited supers when they were very young. They took them from their parents and brought them here for intensive training, not just in fighting, but in cultural and scientific skills. Your folks and my mother must have grown up here," said Quigley. "The place is mostly deserted these days, but sometimes members keep important things here, or hide secret messages."

The reached the top the the vertical climb and found themselves in a rocky passage. Quigley took out a sheet of blank paper, moved his finger over it, and an instant later had produced a map.

"Down this hall to the left is an area for sled and snowsuit storage. To the right is the Vernacularly Fastened Door, which leads to the headquarter's kitchen," Quigley said.

There was a computer terminal hooked up to a sealed metal door. Quigley pressed the enter key and a prompt came up. "PASSWORD: What is the central theme of Anna Karenina?"

Quigley pointed to the prompt and asked the others, "Do you have any ideas about this?"

"Anna Karenina? Who's that? Never heard of her," said Dash.

"I think it's a Tolstoy novel, but I don't know the theme," said Violet. "Even if I did, there must be a million different ways to say it."

"Ok," said Quigley. "This is an emergency, so I'm going to do it the hard way."

He placed his index finger close to the surface of the door and a focused beam of energy appeared at his fingertip. He moved it in a wide circle around the middle of the door, cutting a hole in it.

"Wow, that's a cool power!" said Dash.

"Aren't you afraid that someone might be on the other side of a door sometime and they might get hurt?" Violet asked.

"My beam doesn't cut living flesh," Quigley explained.

The three climbed through the hole, only to find a smoldering ruin, a frozen waterfall, and a mostly-frozen lake leading to the polluted stream they had seen earlier. Now the source of the pollution was clear: ashes from an enormous fire which had destroyed the entire headquarters.

"Hello? Anyone here?" Violet called.

There was no reply.

"We're too late," said Quigley. "The attack's already happened."

"Maybe Count Buddy is meeting on top of the mountain with whoever did it," said Violet. "He said he had unfinished business here."

"What happened with Count Buddy?" asked Quigley. "You're sure he's up there?"

Dash and Violet filled Quigley in on their adventures since they had last seen him.

"Let's sneak up there tonight and scope things out," said Quigley.

"We have to be careful," said Violet. "Our parents and Jack-Jack are hostages. Why don't just you and I go?"

"What about me?" demanded Dash.

"You can stay here and look for clues," said Violet. "It's too risky for all of us to go."

Dash sulked a bit, but he agreed.

Violet and Quigley began to climb the slippery, slushy, slope of the waterfall. Quigley led the way, because he could cut handholds and footholds in the ice and rock with his energy power.

Halfway up, they came to a rocky ledge. Quigley carved it a little wider and said "Let's rest here for a minute. I have some carrots in my backpack we can eat to get our energy back."

They sat together on the ledge, close enough that the sides of their arms touched. Violet felt her heart beating faster.

"It's a beautiful view from up here, isn't it?" she said, looking out over the valley.

"Very beautiful," said Quigley, but he wasn't looking at the view.

At this point in the story, I believe we should give Violet and Quigley a little privacy, so I will not write any more of what happened between these two on the ledge, only that they resumed their climb with small secret smiles.

They found Jack-Jack sleeping in a casserole dish by the plane. Count Buddy's gang seemed to be asleep also.

Violet gently shook Jack-Jack's shoulder. "Jack-Jack, wake up! Come on, we're getting you out of here."

Jack-Jack shook his head, "Gostages," he said, meaning "Mom and Dad and Macroburst will be killed if I try to escape. I'll have to stay until we find a better way."

Quigley asked Jack-Jack, "Did you hear the villains say anything about burning the V.F.D. Headquarters? Did they take anything?"

"Yop. Gnippt File, no shugbowl," said Jack-Jack.

"He said: Yes, they got the Snippet File, but not the sugar bowl," Violet translated for Quigley. "What's the sugar bowl?"

"Dunno," said Jack-Jack.

"I remember the file we found in the Library of Records said that secrets were transferred to the s.b., so that must be the sugar bowl," Violet said.

Quigley said, "Jack-Jack, if you can't leave yet, would you try to find out as much as you can about the sugar bowl and the villain's plans?"

"Jamebond," said Jack-Jack, meaning "I agree to spy as much as I can."

Violet and Quigley climbed back down the slope, determined that somehow tomorrow they would find a way to rescue Jack-Jack, the Parr parents, and Macroburst.

They found Dash looking into the refrigerator, which had somehow survived the ravages of the fire.

"Did you find any clues?" Violet asked him.

"I was looking for something to eat," said Dash. "There's not much in here but condiments and fresh dill."

"Very Fresh Dill!" exclaimed Quigley. "There's a message in the refrigerator. According to what I learned about Verbal Fridge Dialogs, there will be a jam jar, with the initials of the person the message is for written in the jam."

"Yeah, I found a jam jar," said Dash.

"Were there initials in it?" Violet asked.

"I saw a big letter 'J' and some other letter I don't remember," said Dash.

"Where's the jar now?" asked Quigley.

"It won't do any good. I ate the jam," said Dash.

"Oh no!" said Violet. "How could you?"

"I was hungry," said Dash. "All we had this morning was that stupid corn-on-the-cob."

"What else was in there?" Quigley asked.

"Five olives in a jar," said Dash. "I ate them, too."

"That means the next big V.F.D. meeting is coming on Thursday," Quigley interpreted. "It'll be at the Last Safe Place, but they didn't tell us where that is."

"Here's a bottle of ketchup," said Dash, "I didn't eat that."

"Look at the ingredients label," said Violet. "It refers to the last quatrain of the eleventh stanza of 'The Garden of Proserpine'." The ingredient 'sugar' is underlined, too."

"That no life lives forever;  
That dead men rise up never;  
That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea," quoted Quigley.

"How did you know that?" asked Dash.

"They made us memorize lots of poetry for secret messages," Quigley said. "Thanks to Duncan's photographic memories, I knew it."

"I think it means the sugar bowl was thrown into the river to keep it safe," said Violet.

"I wonder who 'J' is?" Quigley said. "Josephine, Jerome, Jock... probably Jock. The person who wrote it might not know he's dead."

The children slept in the ruined headquarters that night, their minds still spinning with the mysteries of the V.F.D. and the refrigerator message.


	14. Spy

Jack-Jack woke early from his cold and fitful sleep in the casserole dish. He heard Esmé and Syndrome talking nearby. He peeked out. Esmé was wearing a gaudy flame-colored dress. Syndrome was back in his old black-and-white super costume.

"What wonderful morning," Syndrome said. "By the end of today I'll have more sidekicks than ever before!"

"We'll need them, too, when we attack the Hotel Derrière," said Esmé.

"Now that we know the location of the Last Safe Place from the Snippet File," said Syndrome, "We can wipe out the last pesky bunch of second-rate supers I haven't been able to find."

Jack-Jack made a mental note of the name of the Last Safe Place for future reference.

"One more thing I have to do, Darlin'," Esmé said, "I'm goin' down to the burned-out HQ to check it out for myself. Maybe the two of them missed somethin'."

"My pare- that is, The Man with a Beard and No Hair and the Woman with Hair and No Beard are very thorough," Syndrome replied.

"They might be holdin' somethin' back. They weren't goin' to tell you about the Snippet File at first," said Esmé.

"Suit yourself," said Syndrome. "Hurry up, though. We're expecting the Snow Scouts to get here soon."

"I'll take the sled down; it'll be faster," said Esmé.

Down below, Dash, Violet, and Quigley saw Esmé preparing to sled down the mountain. They ducked behind the ruined archway of the old library, which had the V.F.D. motto "World, be quiet - hear?" carved on it.

"This could be our chance to turn the tables on them," said Quigley. "We could take her hostage and bargain to get Jack-Jack and the others free."

"Maybe," said Violet doubtfully. "It depends how Syndrome feels about her."

Esmé sledded down the slippery slope and skidded to a stop at the edge of the frozen lake. She walked toward the ruined building.

"I know there's someone there," Esmé said. "I spotted you movin' around last night. Nobody else did."

Violet, Dash, and Quigley moved out cautiously, suspecting a trap. They were still wearing the Snow Scout masks

Esmé didn't appear to recognize them. She held out her hands to show she wasn't armed. "I think I'm safe to assume you're enemies of Count Buddy," she said. "So am I."

"We're Volunteers," said Quigley.

"Volunteer Freedom Defenders, here to protect your headquarters?" asked Esmé with a mocking tone. "A bit late, aren't you?"

"We want to rescue the people Syndrome has taken," said Violet in a disguised voice. "Hugo, Colette, and Kevin. And the baby."

"That's what I was hopin'," said Esmé. "I only want revenge on Syndrome and the Incredibles children, not on Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, and Macroburst. None of those three had anythin' to do with my husband Monty's death. I'm even willin' to let the baby go too, since he's too young to be really held responsible."

"What did you have in mind?" Dash asked.

"Here's my offer," said Esmé. "I'll escort you up there, and you either work out a deal or fight Syndrome for them."

"Are you willing to pretend to be our hostage?" Quigley asked.

"No, I wouldn't make a good hostage. I've got Syndrome believin' I'm in love with him, but he wouldn't trade my life for anythin'. He'd just call your bluff."

"All right, we'll do it," said Violet. "How are you suggesting we approach?"

"There's a trail, but that'd take longer and we might run into Snow Scouts," said Esmé. "The best way is to haul the sled back up the waterfall, if you can."

Quigley led the way again, testing and re-carving handholds and footholds where necessary. The going was harder than last time, partly because the ice was starting to melt from the false spring weather, and partly because last time they weren't pulling a sled.

As they went up, all three were trying to decide: was it better to fight or negotiate? If the latter, what did they have to offer?


	15. Scouts

As they climbed, Violet whispered to Quigley, "You can cut through metal without hurting living flesh. Could you cut the collars off of our parents and Macroburst?"

"Yes," said Quigley, "If they let me close enough. The strength of the beam weakens with distance. I can cut wood and cloth from a distance, but not metal."

"We should just start fighting," said Dash.

"Mom and Dad might get killed," Violet said. "Let's try talking first."

They finally got to the top and pulled the toboggan with Esmé onto level ground.

"Who goes there?" Syndrome demanded.

The children looked around and saw the villain standing next to his plane, beside two people with an aura of menace who were wearing suits with large padded shoulders.

"We were expecting you to come back by the path," said the man with a beard but no hair. "I see you found three Snow Scouts and recruited them as your slaves already."

"No, no, no," Esmé said quickly. "These aren't Snow Scouts. They're volunteers I found in the headquarters."

"Volunteers?" said the woman with hair but no beard. "Second-generation supers," she whispered to the others. "Who knows what powers they might have?"

Count Buddy gave them a confused frown, half scared and half scornful. The hook-handed man, the white-faced women, and the three "ex-carnival-freaks" came up to see what was going on, but not close enough for Quigley to use his cutting beam.

"We captured your girlfriend, Syndrome," Violet said. "But we didn't want to become a monster like you, so we're not holding her hostage."

Esmé looked annoyed, but she didn't contradict them.

"We're here for Jack-Jack Parr," Dash said, "And we're not leaving without him."  
Syndrome smirked. "And what makes you so sure I'll let him go?"

Violet had a sudden insight. Jack-Jack had told them last night that the villains were looking for a sugar bowl and hadn't found it. Later, they had deciphered a message about it in the refrigerator...

"You will give us Jack-Jack," she said, "Because we know where the sugar bowl is."

Syndrome glared at the three companions. "Where is the sugar bowl?" he hissed. "Give it to me!"

Quigley shook his head. "Not until you give us Jack-Jack."

"Never!" said Count Buddy. "That baby has caused me too much grief. I must have my revenge!"

"Give it up," said the woman with hair and no beard, "The sugar bowl is more important than your revenge."

"No it's not!" said Buddy defiantly.

"Yes it is," said the man with a beard and no hair, glaring at Buddy with an aura of menace.

"Oh, all right," muttered Syndrome. "I can always try to capture him again later."

The woman with hair and no beard picked up a covered casserole dish.

"The baby is napping in here," she said. "Once you tell us where the sugar bowl is you can leave and take your baby friend with you."

Violet didn't think they would be satisfied with the answer, "The sugar bowl was thrown into the stream and floated away who-knows-where!" How could she play out the bluff?

"How do we know we can trust you?" Violet asked.

"You don't," said the man with a beard and no hair.

"Here's the deal, then," Violet says. "We escort one of your thugs to where the sugar bowl is hidden. He or she can hold onto the baby as a hostage. We get the sugar bowl, we make the exchange for the baby, and we leave."

"You could probably overpower one," said the woman with hair and no beard. "I say all of them should go with you."

"Agreed," said Violet, since that was exactly what she had been hoping for. She was secretly planning that when the "thugs," including their parents, were down the hill then Quigley could cut the three supers free of the collars that were blocking their memories and the tables would be turned. Alas, it was not to be.

Just then, the troop of Snow Scouts came marching into view. They had taken off their masks because the snow gnats had all been driven away by the smoke of the HQ fire. In the lead were Uncle Bruce and Kari Melita Spats.

"Our business will have to wait a few minutes," Syndrome said. "We have recruiting to do."

"Here, take the baby," said the woman with hair and no beard to the white-faced female guards who had gone by the names Toncuny and Budd. The woman pulled out a whistle which was on a chain around her neck.

Violet remembered what the man with a beard but no hair had said to Esme. "Recruiting" mean "enslaving."

"Stay away!" she shouted to the scouts. "It's a trap! These people mean to kidnap you!"


	16. Skirmish

"Get away while you still can!" Dash warned the Snow Scouts.

"Don't listen to them," said Count Buddy in a friendly voice, "I'm Syndrome, a new superhero, and my friends and I are here to help you celebrate False Spring."

"They're cakesniffers," said Kari Melita. "They just want to spoil my False Spring Queen dance. Why should I believe people who are too stupid to take off their masks when the snow gnats are gone?"

Violet, Dash, and Quigley looked at each other. It would blow their cover, but they had to take off their masks to have any chance of convincing the snow scouts to trust them. They removed them.

Esmé was in a fury at being fooled. "I thought it might be you, but seein' three of you threw me off."

"What? You're dead!" said Count Buddy. "I dropped you from the plane. And you, Rydinger, you're the twin who died when I set your house on fire."

"Nope, I'm a triplet," said Quigley. "And I'm alive."

"I know you, Violet and Dash," said Kari Melita. "You called me over to your house and then stupidly went off to the beach and left the gas on or something so the house blew up in my face. You're just cakesniffers out to ruin my day. You were mean to me at school, too."

"Treachery!" said the woman with hair and no beard. "The deal is off. Tell us where the sugar bowl is right now or these two guards will throw your baby brother off the cliff."

"No," said Tocuny, "I draw the line at killing babies."

"Me too," said Budd. "I resign." She set the casserole dish down on the ground.

Syndrome caught the two women in a zero-point energy beam and tossed them far down the mountain.

"I accept your resignation," he sneered.

Violet only had a moment to make a force sphere to grab one thing; she chose the casserole dish. (I'm not sure what happened to the women, but I fear the worst). The dish came open as the force field dragged it to Violet. Only a large eggplant was inside.

"Is that you, Jack-Jack?" Violet asked. "Did you morph into an eggplant?"

"Not eggplant," said Jack-Jack, appearing from behind the wheel of the plane where he had hidden.

Dash zipped over to Jack-Jack, picked him up, and brought him back to the others before the villains could do anything.

"What's going on?" demanded Uncle Bruce.

"As I said, I'm a superhero," said Syndrome. "I and my associates are protecting you from those supervillains so you can hold your False Spring celebration. Those two white-faced people were supervillains, too: Bomb Voyage and his evil sister Bette Noir."

"Now that you mention it, I did read something in the paper about supervillains," said Bruce. "Yes, two of those children's faces were on the front page."

"Go ahead with your celebration," said Esmé. "We'll hold them off. Our security guards will join your dance to keep you safe."

"We will?" said Hugo.

"Sure, why not?" said Kevin. "I can dance with two equally-strong feet."

"I don't know..." Uncle Bruce hesitated.

Kari snatched the Spring Pole that Uncle Bruce was holding, "Come on, Uncle Bruce. I've been looking forward to this for a long time and I don't want it ruined by a few cakesniffing supervillains. I'm not afraid with a real hero around to protect me. I crown myself False Spring Queen!"

Kari marched to the edge of the ice with the Spring Pole and stuck it deep into the ice. The ice began to creak and groan and cracks appeared in it.

"You have guts, and you're cute," Syndrome said to Kari. "Would you be interested in being my sidekick?"

"Oh, please do," said Esmé. "I'll buy you lots of nice things and treat you like the daughter I never had."

"Sure," said Kari. "Life's been sooo boring at school. I'll try adventure for a while."

"No, Kari!" said Violet. "He's evil!"

"You're the one who's evil, you cakesniffing supervillain!" said Kari.

Seeing that Kari had already started the celebration, the Snow Scouts moved forward and began to dance, while chanting, "Snow Scouts are accommodating, basic, calm, daring,..." and the whole group of Syndrome's guards moved out to join them.

WHEEET! Suddenly the woman with hair and no beard blew her whistle and the sky was full of eagles. The eagles grabbed up a net that had been camouflaged in the snow and carried it up into the sky, lifting up the entire set of astonished Snow Scouts, along with the hook-handed guard, Kevin, Hugo, and Colette. Eagles landed on each padded shoulder of the menacing man and woman, lifting them off the ground.

ZAP! Quigley began firing his cutting beam, trying to cut the prisoners loose. He made a few holes, but the n et was too large to break all at once.

SCREEE! Eagles directed by the woman with hair and no beard dived at Quigley's face. He ducked, and his finger beam, still blasting, hit the cracked and creaking ice.

CRAACK! The ice split as the edge began to fall. Syndrome, using his rocket boots, pulled Kari and Esmé to safety. Dash tried to run, but the slippery slush gave no traction. Just as they were sliding off the edge, Jack-Jack reached out with the stretching power he had copied from his mother, grabbed the toboggan, and pulled it under them.

"Rosebud!" cried Jack-Jack.

Then they were sledding down the icy slope that was melting and disintegrating from under them. Violet used force-fields to guard them from hitting rocks; Dash used super-fast reflexes to steer. Quigley fired off one last beam that punctured the tires of the plane so that Syndrome couldn't use it to pursue them.

"Jamebond!" said Jack-Jack, suddenly remembering his spy mission. "Safeglace Hottle Derrerr! Narsonists!"

"Good work, Jack-Jack!" said Violet. "The Last Safe Place is the Hotel Derrière, and the villains plan burn it."

That was all they had time to say, because the toboggan struck the bottom of the frozen waterfall with a hard smack, and the waterfall above them broke completely free from the ice.

A freezing downpour of water hit them, forcing them underwater. The cold shock stunned them so completely that all thought of using super-powers was driven from their minds. Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack found themselves clinging to the toboggan as it headed down one branch of the stream, while Quigley was swept down the other.

"Quigley!" called Violet.

"Don't worry!" Quigley called over the raging flood, "I'll meet you at the -"

That was all the Incredibles heard before he was swept away down the other tributary of the raging stream.


	17. Book the 11th, The Gloomy Grotto

There is a saying, "That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I think this is not true in general. For example, I have been breathing for many years, and that has neither killed me nor made me stronger. Reading this sad tale will not kill you (I hope), but it may make you helpless with sobs, which is certainly not going to make you stronger. And the experience of the unlucky Parr children, being carried along by a raging stream on a toboggan, was making them miserable and numb with cold, so they were not feeling very strong either.

"Dash, isn't there any way to get us to shore?" Violet asked.

"I tried paddling with my feet, but the water makes them too cold to move fast," Dash said.

"We've got to get back up there," Violet said. "Those two evil people who were working with Count Buddy have carried our parents off in a net, along with those poor Snow Scouts."

"Gloomb," said Jack-Jack, which meant, "I'm afraid it's too late. The eagles have already flown them away."

"We know where they're going," said Dash. "To the Hotel Derrière, to burn it down. If we can get there before they do..."

"But how can we?" asked Violet. "We don't know where it is."

"We have to find out," Dash said.

"And what about Quigley? He's being swept away by the stream too, and he doesn't even have a toboggan."

"Don't worry about him," said Dash. "He'll cut down a tree branch or something with his blast-finger and use that to get to shore."

"I hope he's all right," said Violet anxiously.

BONNGG! The toboggan struck something that was sticking up out of the middle of the stream. It was a metal tube with a piece of glass at the end of it. Within, they could see someone's eye looking at them.

"A periscope?" said Dash. "What would a submarine be doing here?"

With a huge splash, the submarine surfaced beneath them, lifting the toboggan out of the water.

"Are you friend or foe?" came a booming voice through a speaking tube.

"Friend!" called Jack-Jack. It was the only sensible answer.

"Password?" asked the voice.

Violet thought for a moment, and decided on the motto they had seen on the archway of the ruined V.F.D. headquarters.

"World, be quiet - hear?" Violet said.

The hatch of the submarine opened. "Enter, Incredibles. And welcome. Aye!"

As they climbed down, the voice boomed out confusing instructions. "Watch your step, Aye! Watch your manners, Aye! Watch the birdie! No, I'm not taking pictures now, am I?"

At the bottom of the ladder stood a large masked man wearing a wetsuit. On the front of the suit was a superhero logo of three arrows pointing in a counterclockwise circle.

"Greetings, Incredibles! Aye! I'm Captain Widdershins. Aye! You may not have heard of me by that name, because it's a new one. Aye! I used to call myself Splashdown."

"Hi, I'm Violet and these are my brothers Dash and Jack-Jack. I've heard the name Splashdown somewhere before."

"Jedmode!" said Jack-Jack, meaning "Josephine Edna Mode!"

"That's it!" Dash said, "She said you died because of a cape."

"My cape caught in a vortex at sea, aye. But I didn't die. That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Aye! I discovered a new power that day. The vortex was pulling me down underwater, spinning me clockwise faster and faster. Aye! All of a sudden I found I could make the water move counterclockwise and I canceled out the vortex. Aye!"

"What did you do then?" Violet asked.

"I swam away. I can breathe underwater, but that's not a new power. I've always been able to do that. Aye! In honor of that escape, I gave myself a new name: Captain Widdershins."

"Why Widdershins?" Dash asked.

"Because it means counterclockwise. You knew that. Aye?" Widdershins asked.

"I didn't," said Dash.

"Why did you let everyone think you were dead?" Violet asked.

"I saw bad times were coming for supers. Aye! Lawsuits were starting and there was talk of banning us. So I went into hiding; I didn't hesitate. That's my motto: He who hesitates is lost!"

"Or she," said a woman's voice.

The Parrs turned and saw a young lady of about fifteen. She was also in a wetsuit with the Widdershins logo, and her mask was shaped like triangles around her eyes.

"Aye, or she," said Captain Widdershins. "Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack, this is my stepdaughter, Stratogale."

"I don't use that name anymore," she said. "Call me Fiona."

"Josephine Mode mentioned you, too. Another cape accident," said Violet.

"My stepfather contacted me secretly, asking me to join him in hiding," said Fiona. "To throw the authorities off track and give me a head start, we hired a stuntwoman to wear my costume with a rocket belt and appear in public as me. She was flying alongside a plane, waving to people, when her cape was sucked into the jet engine and she was killed instantly."

"You can fly?" Dash asked in admiration.

"Aye," said Fiona. "Though there's not much use for it in a submarine."

"That's cool! What else can you do?" Dash asked.

"I'm strong," Fiona said. She lifted Captain Widdershins easily with one hand, then set him down again. "And I can talk to birds. Tweet-chirrup! That means 'I like you a lot' in robin."

"Woow!" said Jack-Jack, meaning "Wow!"

"Wait a second," said Violet suspiciously. "You say you were active as a super before they were banned. That was fifteen years ago. You're not that old!"

"Once we were in hiding," Captain Widdershins said, "We went on an undersea expedition to find the lost city of Atlantis, something I've always wanted to do. Aye! We explored deep into uncharted waters..."

"Did you find Atlantis?" Dash asked.

"I'm not sure what we found," Widdershins said. "Maybe one of its defenses. Aye! All of a sudden, we were miles from our last position with no memory of how we got there. Not only that, but fifteen years had passed in an instant without aging us at all! Aye!"

"We learned from the radio that everything my stepfather had feared had happened: supers were banned," said Fiona. "Since there had been no sign of us for fifteen years everyone was sure we were dead, and that was exactly what we wanted."

"Then, just recently, I tried sending a message in the old V.F.D. codes. Aye!" said the Captain. "I found there are still a few of us working underground. They gave me a new mission. Aye!"

"Missoon?" asked Jack-Jack, which meant "What mission?"

"To find the sugar bowl!" said Widdershins.


	18. Galley

"Welcome to the Quohog, said Widdershins. "Aye! It's the submarine Q and its crew of two. Aye! But I can't call it that anymore can I? Let's say... the submarine Q and its crew of a few. Aye! That still rhymes," said Widdershins.

"Pardon us, Captain Widdershins," said Violet. "But we don't have time to join your crew. Our parents have been kidnapped by terrible villains. We have to get to the Hotel Derrière before they do."

"That's where I'm headed too, right after we get the sugar bowl. Aye! If we get it before Syndrome does, you'll be in the best position to bargain your parents free. If we don't, we're all finished. Aye! He or she who hesitates is lost!"

"What's the big deal about this sugar bowl?" Dash asked.

"That's a secret too terrible for young people to know," said Widdershins. "It would put you in mortal danger. Aye!"

"He hasn't even told me," said Fiona.

"I'm still not totally convinced about this time-warp story," said Violet. "I mean, we've never met you before. For all we know you could be supervillians."

"If we went by the newspaper, that's what we'd believe about you. Aye!" said Captain Widdershins in a bit of a huff.

"I know what would convince you," said Fiona. "Follow me to the main room and I'll show you."

She led the way to the largest room in the submarine, which had a table covered with charts in the center. To one side was a porthole, and under it was a desk. Fiona rummaged in the drawers of the desk and produced a photograph.

"Here, look at this," she said.

The photograph showed Bob and Helen Parr as beaming newlyweds standing in front of a church, with a kindly-looking priest standing on the steps behind them. On either side were their friends, all in super costumes: Gazerbeam, Dynaguy, Meteorman, Thunderhead...

"Look, there I am on the left," said Fiona. She pointed to herself in the picture. The costume was different, but it was clearly her.

"Ok, I'm convinced," said Violet.

"Boss!" said Fiona.

"Now I'm really convinced," said Violet. "In today's slang we'd say 'cool'."

"Now, then," said Captain Widdershins. "I'll assign you to your duties."

"Duties?" asked Dash.

"Aye, as new members of the crew. Violet, you'll help repair the telegraph machine. Aye!"

"I don't know anything about machinery," Violet said.

"Then it's time you learned. Aye! Dash, you'll help Fiona read the tidal charts and figure out where the sugar bowl has gone."

"I don't know anything about reading tidal charts," Dash said.

"Then it's time you learned. Jack-Jack, you'll help Cookie in the galley with dinner."

"Grubb grubb," said Jack-Jack.

"He says the last time he tried to cook it turned out badly. He's not sure he really knows how to cook," Violet translated.

"It's time he learned, then. Aye! Cookie, come out and meet our new crew members," Widdershins called.

A young boy trotted out from the galley. "Hey, great to see you guys again!"

"Phil?" Dash said in surprise. They had last seen Phil, the optimistic boy from across the street, when they were working at the Salubrious Stench Lumber Mill.

"Yep! After you left, the lumber mill got really boring. I ran away to sea on a raft," said Phil.

"That sounds dangerous," said Violet.

"It was totally wicked!" Phil said. "I was nearly eaten by a shark, but Captain Widdershins saved me. Now I'm the cook, which is an awesome job since I get to work with supers."

"Garnish," said Jack-Jack, which meant "I'll be helping you cook now."

Jack-Jack and Phil went back to the galley. Jack-Jack helped by morphing his hands into chopping knives to dice up fish and vegetables for chowder.

"Ginzu!" said Jack-Jack.

Dash and Fiona began working on the tidal charts. He was able to look things up in the books and tables really fast when she told him what to look for.

Fiona sighed, "I wish my brother Fernald were here. He refused to go into hiding with us and now we've lost track of him."

"How old is Fernald?" Dash asked.

"He was a year younger than me when I left, but now I suppose he's grown up," Fiona said sadly.

"I'm sure you'll find him someday," Dash said to comfort her.

Violet tried to check out the telegram machine, but she didn't know what to look for. "I can't find anything wrong with it," she told the Captain. "Maybe there's a problem on the other end."

"We were getting lots of Volunteer Factual Dispatches every day, and now we're getting none," said Widdershins. "Oh well, come over here and I'll show you how the submarine controls work. Aye! They may need some repair work, too."

Violet sighed. She didn't seem to be getting through to him that she wasn't an expert on repairs or inventions.

Soon, Phil and Jack-Jack came out of the galley with a big pot of soup.

"Chowda!" announced Jack-Jack.

"He means dinner's ready," said Violet to Captain Widdershins.

"Fiona and Dash, stop flirting over there and come to dinner," called the Captain.

"We weren't flirting," said Dash indignantly.

"You know, if we find Fernald we could have a double wedding right here in the Quohog: you and Fiona, and Violet and Fernald," said Widdershins.

"Eeew!" said Dash. "Get real, I'm only ten!"

After everyone gathered for dinner, Dash announced, "We've figured out where the sugar bowl has to be."

"Aye?" asked Captain Widdershins. "Where?"

"Where this 'GG' is on the map," said Fiona.

"Aye, that's Gargoyle Grotto," said Widdershins. "It has a very narrow approach from underwater. Tomorrow, one of you children will have to swim into it to fetch out the sugar bowl. Aye."


	19. Growths

After dinner, the Quohog set course for Gargoyle Grotto. Jack-Jack and Phil went to sleep early. Violet continued her lessons with Captain Widdershins on how the ship worked. Dash and Fiona watched out the porthole as they passed schools of fish.

"I'm sorry my stepfather embarrassed you like that, Dash," said Fiona.

"It's ok," Dash said.

"Sometimes I think about it... When a super marries a super, their children are supers, like your folks and you. But since the Relocation it's been much harder for supers to find each other."

"Fiona, could we talk about something else? What was it like to fight crime in the golden age?" Dash asked.

"It wasn't all crime-fighting," Fiona said. "Sometimes I volunteered to help at the zoo with the birds. But there was the time I caught a gang of robbers by flying in one window of their hideout and out the other, punching them all out on the way..."

"Quiet!" called Captain Widdershins. "There's something on the sonar."

He shut off the engines and the Quohog drifted silently. Outside the porthole, Fiona and Dash saw an enormous submarine, much bigger than theirs, shaped like a many-legged octopus. In the dome of the head there were two portholes, and the legs twirled round and round, propelling it through the water. Everyone held still, hardly daring to breathe. The octopus-ship kept getting closer and closer until they were afraid one of its legs would crush them by accident.

Captain Widdershins pointed to another, even larger shape on the sonar screen. It was like a slithering, coiling question mark. The legs of the octopus sub began to spin furiously as it rushed away from the question mark and away from them. The question mark followed, and soon both were gone.

"What was that huge question-mark shape?" Violet asked.

"Something very bad," Widdershins said. "Evil that you cannot imagine."

"How do you know about it?" Dash asked.

"Some the fishes told me, some I worked out for myself," said Widdershins. "And that's all I'm saying. Aye. Like I told you before, there are secrets too terrible for young people to know."

"You talk to fishes, and Fiona talks to birds?" Violet said. "It's a regular Dr. Dolittle ship."

After that, the two older Parr children turned in for the night. It seemed that they had hardly slept at all when Captain Widdershins shook them awake.

"We're as close to the Grotto as we can get in the sub. Aye! Time to draw straws and see which child will go in for the sugar bowl," said Widdershins.

"If there are enough diving suits, we all should go," said Violet.

"I agree," Fiona said. "We may need all our powers in case something goes wrong."

"There's something you should know about Gargoyle Grotto," Widdershins warned them. "Aye! Above it is the ruins of Anwhistle Aquatics, which caught fire right before I went into hiding. Aye. It was run by a V.F.D. scientist named Gregor Anwhistle."

"Why is that a problem?" Dash asked.

"In the Grotto there was once a batch of deadly experimental mushrooms he developed. They're probably all gone now, but just in case..."

"Just in case, what should we do?" Fiona asked.

"Don't get close to them. They're so poisonous that if you breathe in even one of their spores it could kill you within an hour."

"Yikes!" said Dash. "Do we really need to do this?"

"Aye! We have to have the sugar bowl. He who hesitates is lost!" said Widdershins.

"Or she," added Fiona.

The three Parrs and Fiona all got diving suits. Jack-Jack got only a sealed helmet since that was all that would fit him. Swimming to the Grotto was easy because the currents carried them there. Getting back would not be so easy.

It was very dark and they had no lights. If they had, they might have noticed the woman swimming above them in the other direction, toward the Quohog.

The grotto itself was artificially lit, by lamps on stands marked "V.F.D.". They saw no sign of mushrooms as they entered. All four began to comb the sand, which was full of all sorts of flotsam - a word which here means combs, bottles, finger puppets, a tin of wasabi, and miscellaneous items carried in by the current.

Violet found an old newspaper article which she put away in a waterproof pocket to read later. Dash found an old notebook and also kept it just in case. Jack-Jack examined the tin of wasabi, but he decided to drop it because he didn't know how to cook with it. They looked and looked, but there was no sign of a sugar bowl.

Suddenly Fiona gasped and pointed in the direction they had come. A thick crop of mushrooms was sprouting, blocking their way!

"What'll we do?" asked Violet. "We can't go back through those or we'll be poisoned."

"A force-field ball?" suggested Dash.

"There's not enough room to make one that will fit all of us," Violet said. "Not with all the mushrooms filling the path."

"Ginzu!" exclaimed Jack-Jack. He opened his helmet and morphed into a metal baby with knife-blade hands. He rushed into the mushroom patch, hacked out a path, and then returned to the diving helmet and morphed back to normal.

Violet formed a force-field ball around them. Fiona used her flight and strength to hover at the top of it, carrying Violet and Jack-Jack so Dash had room to run at the bottom. Dash ran them out to the safety of the water.

Violet hugged Jack-Jack's diving helmet. "That was very brave, but very dangerous, Jack-Jack. If any spores got on you..."

There was a sick cough from inside the diving helmet.


	20. Gaol

With Fiona's strength to help them fight the current, they were able to swim back to the ship very quickly. Their forlorn hope was that Captain Widdershins would help them find a cure for Jack-Jack. "Forlorn hope" here means a desperate and probably doomed enterprise, such as depending on someone who is no longer there.

They got back through the airlock without help from anyone inside.

"Captain Widdershins!" called Violet.

"Stepfather!" called Fiona.

Captain Widdershins was no longer there. Neither was Phil. Somebody had tied balloons with the letters "V", "F", and "D" to the table, but there was no note.

"What happened?" said Dash. "They wouldn't just go off and leave us!"

"If my stepfather thought there was something that needed to be done, he wouldn't hesitate," said Fiona. "In his absence, I'm the new Captain of the Quohog. Aye!"

"I don't care who's Captain. What are we going to do to save Jack-Jack?" Violet asked. She looked into the sealed helmet where mushrooms were growing. Mushrooms were also growing inside Jack-Jack's mouth and throat.

"I don't know. You and Dash look through that notebook you found in the grotto. Aye! And the books in the ship library. Maybe they have information that would help. Aye! I'm going to fire up the engine and get us out of this cave. Aye!"

"Jack-Jack, can you morph?" Violet asked.

Jack-Jack coughed and shook his head. He was too overwhelmed by the mushrooms to concentrate.

"Don't you know anything about mushrooms? You worked at a zoo!" Dash asked Fiona.

"I'm an ornithologist. Aye! I know birds, not mushrooms," said Fiona. She began working the controls to start the ship.

Dash handed the notebook to Violet, who also got out the newspaper article she had found in the grotto. She skimmed the article first, and gave a little gasp of surprise at what she read. She hurriedly put the article away before Fiona could see it. Meanwhile Dash was skimming the titles of the books on the shelves. When he found a book entitled Mushroom Minutiae he brought it to the table and began to speed-read. Violet skimmed through the notebook.

Then something happened which made them feel even more forlorn. As the Quohog emerged from the cave, it ran right into the metallic legs of the octopus submarine! It extended a huge metal tube and sucked them up into the head of octopus.

No sooner had they arrived at the top when Syndrome blasted out the glass porthole and caught Fiona, Dash, and Violet in a paralyzing zero-point beam.

"Hee hee hoo hoo!" said Syndrome. "A whole submarine full of my old enemies! I've hit the jackpot! Hee hee ho hic! Excuse me, laughing is giving me the hiccups. Hic!"

He jumped inside the sub. "I really thought you bought it when you went off that waterfall. Hee hic hee. I guessed that the hic sugar bowl must have fallen from one of your pockets into the stream, worked out hic the location from tidal charts, and hic came here to find it. Now I find you here, too! Hoo hee heh hic! Hic!"

Syndrome glanced over at the masked Fiona. "Quigley, couldn't you find a better super costume? Hic! Those triangle eyes make you look like a girl. Hee heh hic hoo."

He glanced around the room as if looking for something.

"I'll give you credit for getting here before hic me, and no doubt hiding the sugar bowl again. Never mind, ve have vays of making you talk," said Syndrome, adopting a phony German accent. "Hoo hoo heek hic!"

He used the beam to pull them along down the corridor of the octopus submarine.

They passed a room where rows of Snow Scouts were chained to oars. Standing over them was Esmé Sansweet, in a black diving suit to which she had sewed extra arms to make a "fashionable" octopus costume, and Kari Melita Spats, also in a black diving costume with a large letter "S" painted on the chest.

"You have to listen to me, since I'm the lead sidekick," Kari Melita was telling the captive scouts. "It's part of your sidekick training to row for us, so you have to get in rhythm. I've got something that will help."

Kari took a music disc out of her pocket and popped it into a boom box. "There! Mozart will inspire you to row. It makes babies smarter, you know."

Kari began dancing around, waving her arms to the music, and to the dirty looks of the Snow Scouts. "Row! Row! Row your boat!" she attempted to sing, but the words didn't fit the music and it came out a discordant cacophony - which here means "a terrible noise to pester an audience of enslaved Snow Scouts with".

"Oh, hi Darlin'" said Esmé. "I see you've captured the Incredibles and that twin who was workin' with them."

"Yes, I'm taking them to the brig so that Hooky can get them to talk. Hee hic hoo hoo hic!" Count Buddy said.

"Is that a new 'in' laugh, Darlin'? Hee hic ho ho hic!" Esmé tried.

"No, hic, it's the hiccups," said Syndrome. "How are hic the new recruits we got from the Man with a Beard and No Hair and the Woman with Hair and No Beard shaping up?"

"Not bad," said Esmé. "I'm whippin' them with a big wet noodle when they won't row. If that doesn't work I've got a real whip, too."

"And I'm inspiring them with music!" said Kari. "Don't worry, Syndromie, I've got it all under control."

"That's nice, hic!" said Syndrome with little interest. He continued to drag his captives down the hall. Finally he came to a metal door, opened it, threw them in, and locked it.

"U. Tuncboddy!" called Count Buddy. "Interrogate these prisoners hic and find out what they did with the sugar bowl. No, hic don't go into the brig. They're too powerful. Use this valve and let in water, threaten them with drowning. Ho hoo hee hic! You can see and hear them through this porthole. Hic! I'm going to go deal with these hiccups. Hic!"

Syndrome walked away down the hall. The hook-handed guard looked in through the porthole at the captives. "You heard what he said. You'd better talk, or else..."

Fiona stared at him. "Fernald?" she asked. She took off her mask.

"Fiona?" asked the hook-handed guard.


	21. Goon

"It's a trick," Fernald said. "You haven't aged a day from fifteen years ago. You're not Fiona. I know, you're that shape-changing baby!"

"No, it's really me. If I were Jack-Jack, would I know I got this scar on my wrist from fighting you over a teddy bear when you were five?" said Fiona.

Fiona explained about the time-jump she and Captain Widdershins had experienced. Finally, Fernald was convinced.

"Now how am I going to make the Parrs talk? I can't drown you too!" Fernald said.

"We don't have the sugar bowl anyway," said Dash. "We looked for it in the grotto and it wasn't there."

"He's telling the truth, Fernald," said Fiona. "Aye! It was our mission, but we failed."

"So putting you in the brig was pointless!" the hook-handed man said angrily. "What am I supposed to do now?"

"Fernald, why don't you come with us and join the good side, the V.F.D.?" asked Fiona.

Fernald gave a bitter snort, "The V.F.D.? There's no good side between the V.F.D. and Syndrome."

"How can you say that? Syndrome murders people!" Violet said.

"Fiona, you remember my super power?" asked Fernald.

"You can shoot flames from your hands," Fiona replied.

Fernald held up his hooks to the window. "Not any more."

"The V.F.D. did that to you?" Fiona gasped.

"I found a newspaper article that says you burned down Anwhistle Aquatics and killed Gregor Anwhistle," said Violet. "But I still can't believe the V.F.D. would punish you like that!"

"You should have seen that fire," Fernald said. "From a distance it looked like the whole sea was burning."

"You must have been proud of what you did," Fiona said bitterly.

"Proud? It was the saddest day of my life. There's a lot more to the fire than that. The Daily Punctuation doesn't tell the whole story. The V.F.D. can do something villainous, and Syndrome can do something noble. Even the Parrs' parents - Enough! I don't want to talk about it any more."

"Fernald, we left Jack-Jack back in the Quohog dying of poisonous mushrooms. You've got to let us go back there and try to help him!" Violet said.

"I will, on one condition," said Fernald. "Take me with you. If Fiona could find that time-warp again, we could skip another fifteen years and nobody would be looking for us."

"I don't want to skip fifteen years," said Dash.

"We'll drop you off someplace first," said Fernald, but his eyes looked shifty as he said it.

"What about our stepfather?" asked Fiona. "He's missing."

"Splashdown? I don't care a fig what happens to him," said Fernald coldly.

"Where are our par- I mean Hugo, Colette, and Kevin?" asked Dash.

"The Man With a Beard and No Hair has them," said Fernald. "He said it would be safer that way. They just let me and half the Snow Scouts go with Syndrome."

"Oh," said Dash in disappointment.

Fernald opened the cell door. "Hurry up, I'll take you back to the Quohog."

They passed back through the rowing room. Kari Melita was still trying to sing, but she had turned off the boom box. Dash zipped through, snagging the boom box on the way. Violet stripped off her wet suit and went through invisibly. Fernald and Fiona tried to sneak through, but Esmé spotted them.

"Fernald, what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be interrogating prisoners in the brig?" Esmé asked.

"Umm, I came to borrow your whip," said Fernald.

"Why do you have one of the cakesniffing prisoners loose?" Kari demanded.

"She's not a prisoner. She's my sister Fiona, and she wants to join Syndrome," said Fernald.

"That's a funny mask, Fiona," said Kari. "I think we should call you Triangle Eyes."

Meanwhile, the Parrs had gotten back to the Quohog. Jack-Jack was still hanging on, but he was having great difficulty breathing.

"I read that mushrooms like damp, enclosed places," said Dash. "If Jack-Jack could morph he could flame-on and the mushrooms would be killed."

Violet turned on the boom box and placed the speaker next to the helmet. "Does this help, Jack-Jack?"

A muffled "Floatie!" came from inside the helmet. Jack-Jack passed through the helmet in desolid form, leaving the mushrooms behind.

Violet put a force field around him in case of spores. Dash rushed to the galley and came back with a burning match, which he held near the force field. "Flame-on, Jack-Jack," he said.

Jack-Jack morphed to flame form and burned up any remnants of mushrooms and spores still clinging to him. Violet dropped the force field and hugged Jack-Jack.

"Savedme," said Jack-Jack.

"You saved yourself with your own powers," said Dash with a big grin.

They were all so happy they didn't notice Count Buddy sneaking up on them. Once again he caught them with a zero-point beam.

"What a touching family reunion," said Syndrome. "Hee heh hee-hee hic! Oh blast it, hiccups again!"

But what horrified the Incredibles the most was not Syndrome, but the person standing behind him. Fiona was now wearing a black wet-suit with a big letter "S" painted on the chest.


	22. Getaway

"Keep your Triangle Eyes on them, heh hee hic!" Syndrome instructed Fiona. "I'm going to search the sub for information. Hic! This sub is a great find; it's like a time capsule from fifteen years ago, before the Relocation. I may get a lead on some hidden supers. Hic!"

Syndrome began searching the room.

"Here's a fine find already! Hoo hoo hic! A helmet-full of poison mushrooms!" said Syndrome as he picked it up.

Syndrome tried to keep the zero-point beam going on the Parrs as he searched, but he had to give up on the idea when he went back to search the bedrooms.

"Fiona, how could you?" Violet asked when she could move.

"Count Buddy promised that if I'd help him, he'd help me find my stepfather," Fiona said. "Our whole family could be together again. Aye!"

"Help us escape, and stay with the V.F.D.," Violet urged.

"Geroic!" Jack-Jack agreed.

"You wouldn't abandon Jack-Jack," said Fiona. "You can't ask me to abandon my little brother. Aye!"

"Little brother?" asked Dash, "He's big and evil!"

"He's like a chef salad, some good and some evil. Like me," said Fiona.

"Stay if you must, said Violet. "But let us go."

"I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll turn my back for a moment instead of guarding you. If you can get away, so be it. But first..."

Fiona picked up Dash with one irresistibly-strong hand and kissed him on the forehead. "Remember, tweet-chirrup!"

Dash remembered what that meant: "I like you very much" in robin.

Fiona dropped Dash, turned her back, and in that instant Jack-Jack acted. He touched Dash's leg with one hand and Fiona's with the other, gaining speed, flight, and strength. He jetted back into the bedroom area and knocked Syndrome out with one punch, then zipped back and tossed both Syndrome and Fiona out the porthole into the other vessel.

"Goooh!" he shouted, and Violet ran for the controls of the ship. Her lessons with Captain Widdershins had stuck and she was able to start the Quohog.

They headed down the tube to the exit, and suddenly Violet gasped, "The porthole glass is broken! We can't submerge without fixing it!"

Jack-Jack flew up to the porthole, touched a bit of the broken glass still remaining, and morphed into a new porthole window.

Violet was barely comfortable with the controls, but she managed to navigate the submarine out of the tube and into open water.

Then there was a noise that made Violet jump. Had she broken something?

It turned out to be a Volunteer Factual Dispatch coming in on the telegram machine. Dash tore it off and read it aloud.

Dash read:

"From Quigley to the Quohog,

We understand you have three volunteers aboard STOP.  
We need them for an urgent mission STOP.  
Please deliver on Tuesday to the location coded in the words below STOP.

A clever head is a real turn-on  
You bright, you purple amazons.  
(From 'Smart Girls', by Brian Wilson of the Octopus Boys).

At the pink hour; when the eyes and back  
Turn upward from the deck, when the human engine waits  
Like a pony throbbing party...  
(From 'The Waste Land' by T.S. Eliot).

CC:JS"

"What is that supposed to mean?" asked Violet.

"I have no idea. It suddenly goes into poetry," said Dash.

"I think I know that first song," said Violet. "It should say 'You bright, you brainy amazons.' And it's by one of the Beach Boys, not the Octopus Boys."

"There was something in that notebook you found in the Grotto about Verse Fluctuation Declarations," Dash said. "The changed words are the message. So it's brainy... beach."

"Brainy Beach!" said Violet. "We have the location. Now we just need to work out the second one."

"That one's impossible," said Dash.

"Not if we can find a poetry book," said Violet.

Dash speed-skimmed every book he could find, looking for poetry. Finally, on the top shelf of the bookcase he found what he needed.

"Violet... taxi.. waiting," said Dash

"So there'll be a taxi waiting for me, or a violet taxi, or just a taxi and Quigley wanted to write my name," said Violet.

"Can we make Brainy Beach on time?" asked Dash.

"If I can figure out our course. Help me read the maps, ok?" Violet asked.

Dash sighed, "All this reading is making my head hurt. But ok, I'll help."

They brought the Quohog to the foggy shore of Brainy Beach about the same time of day as their adventures had begun, when Agent Rick Poe had told them their house was burned down and their parents were missing. It was like things were starting all over again: their house was still burned down, their parents were still missing...

And here was Mr. Poe again, coming through the fog. "Children! I had a tip you might be here." he said. "An anonymous tip by someone who signed only their initials, J.S. Do you know who that might be?"

"How did you get here?" Violet asked suspiciously.

"In my own car, naturally. Come with me for a debriefing. You have a lot of explaining to do," Poe said.

"You didn't come in a taxi?" Dash asked.

"No. As I said, I came by car. Come on, we need to get out of here quickly," said Poe.

Dash gave him a hard, fast punch in the stomach that doubled him over.

"No!" gasped Poe. "You're in big trouble. Let me help you. You need me!"

"We don't trust you. Let's go, Violet," Dash said, and Violet formed the force-sphere running-ball they had used for transport many times before. They ran toward the road, where a taxi with tinted windows was waiting.

Inside, there was a red-headed woman wearing gloves and a long black coat buttoned up to her chin, who had been reading a poetry book. She looked up and gave them a smile, a smile that a person might give an associate or another member of an organization rather than a friend.

"Hello, I'm KitFox," she told them. "Climb in."

The children did as she asked and the taxi sped away. The tables of their lives had turned again, but whether for good or ill only time would tell.


	23. Book the 12th: The Dire Dirigible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I originally wrote this, the last books of "The Series of Unfortunate Events" had not yet been released. The Gecko Ending begins with this chapter.

There is a maxim that "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," and it's one I have found quite difficult to put into practice. For example, if there are three mutual enemies there are three ways for two of them to pair up against the remaining enemy. The option of all three becoming friends never seems to happen. This is no mere theoretical matter, as you will see if you continue to read this miserable story. I advise you to read something happier instead, such as a story about cheerful little elves.

When we last left the super-powered but unfortunate Parr children, they had turned the tables of their lives by getting into the taxi of my sister, KitFox, and by rejecting both the transportation and the assistance offered by Agent Rick Poe.

"Whaggives?" asked Jack-Jack, as KitFox pulled the taxi away from the curb, meaning "Would someone please explain to me what is going on?"

"Yes. KitFox, would you please explain what this mission is that you wanted us for?" Violet asked.

"I'll be happy to," said KitFox. "But first I need a report from you. Widdershins telegrammed us that you were aboard and that you had gone into Gargoyle Grotto after the sugar bowl. We sent back the message that brought you here. But we had no word on the success of your underwater mission. Did you find the sugar bowl?"

"No," said Dash. "It wasn't there. Someone must have taken it before we got there."

"Syndrome probably got to it first," said KitFox grimly.

"No, we got there before he did. He captured us and tried to force us to tell him where it was," Violet said.

"What?" said KitFox in surprise. "Did he capture Captain Widdershins, too?"

"Allgon," said Jack-Jack.

"What my brother means is that Widdershins and Phil were gone when we got back from the Grotto," said Dash.

As the children explained the situation in more detail, KitFox's expression became more and more grim.

"This is bad," she said. "Very, very bad."

KitFox pulled into an alley and began making calls on her cell phone. The messages seemed to consist of short phrases like "No. Yes. Seven and a half. Refactor."

Finally she finished the calls and turned to the children. "Your report changes everything; a third group has the sugar bowl. We're going to meet and arrange a truce. Until the sugar bowl is found, we're all on the same side."

"The same side? With who?" Dash asked.

"Syndrome," said KitFox.

"Boggle!" said Jack-Jack, meaning "I can't believe we're going to be on the same side as Count Buddy!"

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," said KitFox.

She got the taxi started again and drove to a public square where there was a fountain depicting three men in top hats waving wads of cash.

"Here we are," she said. "Neutral ground: the Fountain of Victorious Financiers."

"Just in case something goes wrong, KitFox," said Violet. "What can you do? What are your powers?"

"Predator skills: scenting, stealth, leaping, and so on," said KitFox.

"Is that why you took an animal name?" asked Dash.

"And this," said KitFox, taking off a glove and showing that the back of her hands were covered in red fur and her nails were like claws. "That's why I couldn't make it as a public super. But now, with so many gone, I'm the leader of the V.F.D. pack."

The Parrs warily got out of the car. A long black limousine pulled up on the other side of the fountain. Syndrome, the Man with a Beard and No Hair, and the Woman with Hair and No Beard got out. A third lemon-yellow minivan arrived a moment later. I (a word which here means the writer himself, The Lemon) didn't get out of the van, but Quigley, Duncan, and Isadora did. The Rydingers ran to the Parrs and the two groups exchanged a quick series of hugs.

"Is a truce agreed?" KitFox called to the villains.

"Yes indeed," said the Man with a Beard and No Hair. "Until the sugar bowl is found, an attack on any of us will be avenged by all."

"I thoroughly loathe having to work with you," Syndrome said, "But the sugar bowl is more important."

"The feeling is mutual," said KitFox. "Now, as for teams. I propose a land, sea, and air search team. Whichever team gets on track of the sugar bowl first will notify the others."

"With my submarine, the Karimelita, I'm naturally the leader of the sea team," said Syndrome.

"I'll pilot Syndrome's jet and lead the air team," said the Woman with Hair and No Beard.

"We have a fleet of taxis and other cars in the city, so I'll lead the land team," said KitFox. "The Man with a Beard and No Hair can ride along with us as an observer for your side."

"How shall we divide up the kids?" asked Syndrome.

"No!" cried the Parrs together.

"We don't want to be split up!" said Dash.

KitFox looked at them coldly. "If you wish to be in the V.F.D., you must learn to obey orders. I think the best division is Violet with the land team, Dash with the sea team, and Jack-Jack with the air team."

"What about us?" asked Isadora. "I want to go with Dash."

"That will be fine," said KitFox.

"I'll go with Violet," said Quigley.

"No, I'll go with her," said Duncan.

KitFox nodded at the second suggestion. "Yes, Duncan will stay on my land team, and Quigley will go on the air team."

The Incredibles were highly distressed at this whole arrangement, but it seemed there was nothing they could do. The enemy of their enemy was their "friend," but it certainly didn't feel that way. It almost seemed as if even their friends were their enemies.


	24. Dynamite

As Violet, Duncan, KitFox, and the Man with a Beard and No Hair walked to the car, Violet whispered to KitFox, "What is in the sugar bowl? You never told us."

"Ssh, not in front of him," KitFox answered, nodding in the direction of the Man.

Duncan and Violet got into the back seat, and KitFox and the menacing Man got into the front of the car, with KitFox driving again.

Sitting next to Violet, Duncan was able to share memories of his V.F.D. training with Violet without talking aloud. KitFox had put them through an intense drill of memorization, exercise, and combat training, almost like a boot camp. Duncan hadn't cared for it much, though he had no trouble with the memorization. Unfortunately he could provide no details about the sugar bowl, only that it was something extremely important to the V.F.D.

Violet shared back some of her memories since they had last seen each other: the horrors of Hemoglobin Hospital, the carnivorous cats at the carnival, and scaling the slippery slope... suddenly, she realized she should hold back the memory of stopping with Quigley on the rocky shelf. It was too late. Duncan recoiled and moved as far away from her as he could on the back seat. He stared out the window and wouldn't turn around to look at her.

Finally, KitFox spoke. "One of our agents reported a rumor that the sugar bowl has been hidden at the Hotel Derrière. It's a long shot, but that's where I suggest we search first. Any objections?"

"Go ahead, knock yourself out," said the Man with a Beard and No Hair, a phrase which usually means, "Go ahead and do it."

KitFox drove for what seemed like hours in a series of complicated turns through side streets and back alleys, finally arriving at tall building by the seaside.

"Here it is," she said. "The Hotel Derrière."

As they walked closer, the children noticed something unusual about the building: it has wheels. Dozens of dismantled trolley-cars had gone into its foundation.

"No wonder we couldn't find the Last Safe Place," said the Man with a Beard and No Hair. "You've been moving it."

The hotel lobby was elegant, oriental-carpeted, and deserted. Violet realized that Quigley must have warned the V.F.D. of villains' plot to destroy the place.

"Our agent reported that the sugar bowl might be in the laundry room," said KitFox.

All four headed to the back of the hotel, where there was a coin-operated laundry room. Violet, KitFox, and Duncan began opening washing machines and dryers to look for the sugar bowl.

Suddenly, Violet looked up. "Where's the Man with a Beard and No Hair? He didn't come in with us."

KitFox sniffed the air suspiciously. "I smell a trap. There's dynamite here!"

KitFox grabbed up Violet and Duncan in a single bound, and she was leaping for the door when the bomb exploded. Violet got a force field around them just in time. The blast propelled them out of the door and through the back window of the hotel. The force-field ball rolled over and over on the sand and came to a stop at the water's edge.

"Are you all right, Violet?" Duncan asked. "My break-fall training came in handy just now."

"I was able to roll with it, too," Violet said. "I must have absorbed a little training when we shared memories."

Duncan turned red and looked away.

"Oops," Violet thought, "I reminded him again."

"Come on," said KitFox. They ran around to the front of the hotel, which was now a blazing inferno.

"You broke the truce!" KitFox snarled at the Man with a Beard and No Hair, who was leaning against the taxi.

"Hardly," said the Man. "That trap was set before the truce began. It's not my fault that you blundered into it."

"You gave no warning," said KitFox.

"I warned you that you would knock yourself out if you went ahead," said the Man with a Beard and No Hair smoothly. "You chose to ignore my advice."

"That's diabolical," said Violet.

"Thank you," said the Man.

A short man with a bandaged face appeared from the left side of the building. Violet recognized him as the manager of the Salubrious Stench Lumber Mill, the man they always called "Sir."

"Mission accomplished," Sir told the Man with a Beard and No Hair.

"Not quite," said the Man. "Everyone got out alive."

"You?" said KitFox in a rage. "You reported that the sugar bowl was in there."

"Sorry to disrupt the precision cog-work of your organization that way," Sir said with a sneer.

"Why you..." KitFox growled.

"Now, now, remember the truce," said the Man with a Beard and No Hair.

"You're a V.F.D. agent?" Violet asked Sir.

"I was," said Sir. "His side pays better."

"So the job my Dad had with you at Insuricare, and then our job at the Mill..."

"Was to keep you supers under control, yes," said Sir. "It didn't work out well in either case." He indicated his bandaged face, which had gotten that way after Mr. Incredible knocked him through several walls in a fit of rage.

KitFox's cell phone rang. She talked briefly, then turned to the others.

"That was Isadora from the sea team. They have a lead on the sugar bowl."

"How are we going to get there in a taxi?" Duncan asked.

"We're not," KitFox said. "We're going to get the Valorous Flying Dirigible."


	25. Detecting

I do not normally like writing the word "meanwhile," particularly in a cliché such as "meanwhile, back at the ranch." But I'm afraid I will have to use them a few times in the course of this story, because the Parrs were split up among the land, air, and sea team looking for the sugar bowl.

I have just described what happened with Violet, KitFox, Duncan, and the Man with a Beard and No Hair. Meanwhile, the Woman with Hair and No Beard drove the other two teams away in her black limousine. She dropped the sea team (Syndrome, Dash, and Isadora) off at the pier, and took the air team (Jack-Jack and Quigley) to a private landing field where the jet was parked.

"K sera sera," said Jack-Jack to Quigley, which meant, "I know you wish I were Violet, but I'm not, so we have to make the best of it."

"I'm sorry," Quigley said, "I can't understand you."

The "freaks" and the bunch of Snow Scouts that the Menacing Couple had kept for themselves were all sitting toward the front of the plane. The Scout were silently miserable, too afraid of the Woman to talk. Hugo, Colette, and Kevin were playing cards with Uncle Bruce. They still seemed to have no memory of being Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, and Macroburst.

Quigley started toward the front of the plane with the idea that he might be able to cut off their hypnotic collars and restore their memories, but a voice from the jet's loudspeaker cut him off.

"This is your Captain speaking," said the Woman with Hair and No Beard. "Any attempt to approach my slaves will be regarded as a breach of the truce and grounds for immediate execution. Thank you."

Quigley walked back and sat next to Jack-Jack. It was going to be a long flight. He watched out the window as the Woman executed a search pattern over the ocean, apparently looking for a ship that might have made off with the sugar bowl. It didn't seem very promising.

Quigley touched Jack-Jack's shoulder. "Better copy my power. You might get the opportunity to break your parents free."

"Rojja," said Jack-Jack, meaning "I'm on top of that."

Meanwhile, the sea team boarded the Karimelita. Dash was inwardly feeling a little frightened at facing the villain on his own, but he tried to put on a bold front.

"Are you going to use slave rowing-power again?" Dash asked Syndrome.

"What's it to you?" Syndrome said with a snicker. "There's a motor on this tub too. Since I want to get there as fast as I can, I'll use both the rowers and the motor. Tell you what: since you're so interested, once I find the sugar bowl and the truce is over I'll let you and your girlfriend be galley slaves too. Hoo hoo tee hee hee."

After Count Buddy left to see to the motors, Fiona came into the room.

"Dash! Did Syndrome capture you again?" she asked.

"No, it's a truce to find the sugar bowl," Dash explained.

"What was that he said about a girlfriend?" Fiona asked.

"He was blowing smoke as usual," said Dash. "Fiona, this is Isadora Rydinger, a friend of mine from our last school. She's a half super. Isadora, this is Fiona. She used to be Stratogale, but now... she works for Syndrome."

The two eyed each other, sensing a rival. Dash realized a bad situation was developing. He tugged at Isadora. "Come on, Isadora. Let's find a porthole so we can watch for the sugar bowl."

"You realize if she's Stratogale she's about twenty years older than you?" Isadora asked Dash as they walked away.

"It's a time-warp thing," Dash explained. "She and Splashdown jumped forward fifteen years."

The Karimelita raced through the water at high speed, and in about an hour it surfaced at the ruined site of Anwhistle Aquatics.

"Whoever tricked Captain Widdershins and Phil into leaving the Quohog must have had the sugar bowl with them," Syndrome said. "There are passages from here down to the Gargoyle Grotto. Triangle Eyes, you and your brother and I will search the site for clues. Esmé and Kari Melita will remain inside to guard the Snow Scouts. Dash and Isadora, I suggest you stay inside and keep out of my way."

"We're coming out and looking for clues, too," said Dash. "As long as the truce is on you can't threaten us."

"I can't?" said Syndrome. "Oh well, come out and look if you must."

The search group walked out into the burned-out shell of the huge aquatic research station.

"This brings back old memories," said Fernald.

"Yeah, of burning the place up," said Dash.

"You don't know anything about it," Fernald said with a scowl. "There were good reasons. Gregor Anwhistle was a brilliant but twisted scientist. The experiments he was doing with mushrooms and... with other things had to be stopped."

"They told us something about Anwhistle in V.F.D. training," said Isadora. "Wasn't he Josephine Edna Mode's husband?"

"That was his brother Ike," said Fernald. "I don't know much about him except I think he was a scientist, too."

"Stepfather would never have approved of fighting fire with fire like that," said Fiona.

"Ha! He helped me do it!" said Fernald. "Then he swam away at the first sign of trouble, leaving me to face the music alone."

"I can't believe it!" said Fiona.

"Believe it, sister," said Fernald. "Why do you think he went into hiding right after the fire?"

"Stop gabbing and start searching!" ordered Syndrome.

The group broke up and began to poke around in the ashes.

Isadora pulled Dash aside. "I have an idea," she said.

She closed her eyes and chanted in a low voice:  
"Now bring to me a vital clue,  
The sugar bowl was lost to who?"

A knotted piece of rope appeared in her hand. The knot was intricate and convoluted. Suddenly Fiona, who had been hovering overhead, swooped down and grabbed it.

"Hey!" said Dash, "That's our clue."

"Do you know what it means?" Fiona asked.

"Umm, no," Dash had to admit.

"I do," said Fiona. "It's a Devil's Tongue knot, trademark of the Female Finnish Pirates. I saw it in an old book when stepfather and I were researching legends of the sea, when we were trying to find Atlantis."

"Then the Female Finnish Pirates have the sugar bowl," Isadora said.

"There was something else I remember about the F.F.P.," said Fiona. "Their base is on an island where they made it illegal for anyone else to pick the fruit. It's called the Isle of Forbidden Fruit."

Isadora called KitFox on her cell phone. "We have a lead on the sugar bowl."

And that brings us back to the "meanwhile."


	26. Discovery

KitFox drove Violet, Duncan, the Man With a Beard and No Hair, and Sir into the country, turning off at an unmarked dirt road. She parked in a hay field near a large haystack.

"Victorious Farms Dairy," she explained. "Our airship is here."

"Where? I don't see it," said Sir.

"Wait until I signal the driver," said KitFox.

She tapped the horn in a complicated signal pattern, and all at once the haystack began to shift. The hay slid off and a dirigible emerged. A "dirigible" here means "a lighter-than-air balloon with propellers to steer it around." It had a passenger compartment below the balloon, with a railed balcony around it.

As the group got aboard, the driver greeted them with a huge grin. "Tres bien! Violet et Duncan, bonjour!"

"Hector!" cried Violet and Duncan together. They hugged the former Bomb Voyage.

"It turned out that he's as good with airships as he was with that underground tunneler he helped you escape with," said KitFox.

"Would you tell him to stop fraternizing and get this thing moving?" said the Man with a Beard and No Hair.

Hector got the dirigible moving, and soon they were soaring over the ocean.

"Where are we going now?" Duncan asked.

"To the legendary Isle of Forbidden Fruit, home of the Female Finnish Pirates," said KitFox.

"Legendary?" asked Violet. "Do you know where it is?"

"The trouble is, the F.F.P. disappeared in the fifteenth century. They haven't been heard of since," KitFox said. "The location of their island is lost in history. But we'll dig it up eventually."

"How do we know for sure it's them?" asked Duncan.

"Isadora's cantrip turned up a knot which is a trademark of theirs," KitFox replied. "How reliable is her magic?"

"If she asked for a clue, it's a real one," said Duncan.

"I have an idea," Violet said. "Disappearing for years and re-appearing a long time later reminds me of what happened to Fiona. If pirates went through the time warp several times, or it has a variable effect..."

"I'll call the sea team," KitFox said. "We can cross-reference the location she found with nearby islands."

After a phone call and a check of the charts with Hector, Kit reported that there was an island a few miles away. The submarine, the dirigible, and the jet converged on the island.

"Radio," Hector called out. They all gathered around the radio receiver.

"Calling Syndrome, KitFox, the Man with Hair and No Beard, and the Woman with a Beard and No Hair. This island is heavily protected," said a woman's voice over the radio.

"I know that voice," Violet said. "Let me talk to her."

Violet spoke into the microphone, "Is that you, Justice Mirage?"

"Violet? I'm sorry to hear you're with them. I tried to keep you children out of it by sending a message to Mr. Poe," said Mirage.

"Who spied on the V.F.D. for you to find out where we were going?" Violet asked.

"He was trying to help you, too," said Mirage. "Jerome Sansweet gave me the information."

"Whose side are you on?" asked Violet, confused.

"I worked with Syndrome to spy on him, but my real loyalties are elsewhere. Justice Mirage is only a code name."

"Who are you?" Violet asked.

"My real name is Jenni Suutari. By your reckoning, I'm from several hundred years ago. I'm a Female Finnish Pirate."


	27. Destruction

A three-masted sailing ship launched from the island. Violet went out on the balcony of the dirigible with binoculars. She could see Mirage on deck with a crew of blond women. Intent on the view, she didn't hear The Man with a Beard and No Hair when he came out and stood behind her.

The Woman with Hair and No Beard opened a door in the base of the hovering jet. She opened the cages of the eagles she had stowed aboard. The eagles streaked out through the door and circled high above the pirate ship. Jack-Jack crawled close to the door to watch.

On the Karimelita, Syndrome made a radio call to the ship. "You betrayed me, Mirage! And here I thought you were drawn by my boyish good looks."

"I told you I was drawn to power, Syndrome," said Mirage. "Power for me and my pirate crew, to survive in this strange new world. Knowledge is power, and with the secrets of the sugar bowl I have all the power I need."

"What's to stop us from taking it from you?" Syndrome asked.

"I have hostages: Captain Widdershins and a young boy named Phil," said Mirage.

A pirate woman led the captives onto the deck, with hands manacled behind them.

"I'm supposed to care about them?" Syndrome sneered.

"My stepfather!" Fiona gasped. "Syndrome, you promised me if I joined you that you'd help me find him."

"Mission accomplished; he's found," said Syndrome. "I didn't promise he'd live."

Fiona stared at him in horror.

Kari Melita Spats also looked at him strangely. "Are you really a superhero? How come you don't care about hostages?"

"Of course he's not, you little fool!" said Esmé, shoving her to one side.

He surfaced the submarine and pulled a lever to pop open the top of its head. "Time to break out my secret weapon, the super-swatter."

A flyswatter-shaped field of glowing energy emerged from the top of the submarine, growing until it reached high in the air.

"Now hand over the sugar bowl or get swatted!" he commanded into the radio.

"I have a secret weapon too," replied Mirage. "I have summoned the Surma."

"Surma?" said Buddy. "Sounds like a mattress."

"Named for the Finnish guardian of the underworld. It is a sea monster created by Gregor Anwhistle which can crush your submarine. We found and tamed it to obey us," said Mirage. "As for your companions in the air, we have energy cannons aimed at them."

"I think we can take a gang of has-been pirates," said Syndrome.

"Last chance to back off," radioed Mirage. "I am holding the sugar bowl. Attack and you will risk breaking..."

It was the last thing she had a chance to say before events went out of control. The Woman with Hair and No Beard whistled a signal to one of the eagles. It dived like a stroke of lightning and snatched the sugar bowl from Mirage's hand.

An instant later, a laser blast from the jet severed the top of a mast and sliced straight through its attached sail, dropping the rest of the sail onto the pirate crew.

"Truce's off!" yelled the Woman with Hair and No Beard. She ran from the cockpit to the open door in the bottom of the plane. She kicked Jack-Jack into it and dived through herself before anyone could react. Two eagles caught her shoulder pads and helped her dive toward the eagle with the sugar bowl.

That was the signal the Man with a Beard and No Hair was waiting for. He shoved Violet off the dirigible balcony and also dived out into space. Two eagles caught him also.

Jack-Jack was falling, but he had no intention of letting the villains get away with what they had done. Drawing on Quigley's power of cutting energy that he had absorbed earlier, he neatly sliced through the shoulder pads of the two villains and sent them falling toward the sea.

A moment later Jack-Jack was saved. Fiona, who no longer had any reason to be loyal to Syndrome, had flown up through the swatter opening and caught him. Jack-Jack instantly absorbed flight, strength, and most importantly the ability to talk with birds.

The Menacing Duo had begun to whistle frantically for the eagles to catch them again, pads or no pads.

"Kreee! Kawwaaa!" called Jack-Jack, meaning (in eagle) "You don't have to help them. Let them drop and you're free!"

"Kreee! Kawwaaa!" the eagles repeated to each other. The Menaces continued to fall, screaming. The message reached the eagle which had the sugar bowl, and it released that burden, which also plunged toward the sea.

And from the depths of the sea came the tentacles of the Surma. It was a horrifyingly gigantic chambered nautilus, smelling of slime and death. It gripped the Karimelita and began to crush it. Up close, it didn't look much like the "question mark" shape it has appeared to be on the radar screen.

Just as the crushing began, Syndrome activated the giant flyswatter, possibly hoping to swat the monster. But what he really hit was the dirigible, tearing it beyond repair.

"I'll help you, rescue sub. Aye!" called Captain Widdershins. He twisted free from the dazed pirate who was holding him and dived into the water. It didn't matter to him that he was manacled - water was his element and he could breathe in it. He attempted to call the monster off in squid-language.

Unfortunately, the distorted mind of the Surma did not respond as expected. Without letting go of the submarine, it charged the pirate ship and grabbed that too, along with Widdershins himself.

The pirates, who by this time had pushed the sail aside, fired their energy cannon at the jet, scoring a direct hit on one engine. With no pilot on board to compensate, the jet went nose-down toward the water.

Some people have accused me of ending each book with a "cliffhanger." This means "ending a chapter or a book at a suspenseful point, such as having the hero dangling off a cliff." But this time they are clearly wrong. I am simply ending book the 12th with almost everybody in peril of being smashed, crushed, or drowned. No cliffs are involved at all.


	28. Book the 13th, The Parlous Party

Sometimes people speak of "waiting for the other shoe to drop," a phrase which here means "waiting in suspense for an action to be completed." My apologies to the readers who have been waiting for the other shoe to drop since the end of the last book, or in this case waiting for all the characters to drop, since I left many of them in the air.

Nevertheless, I still must warn you that sad and disturbing secrets will come out and tragic events will transpire in this book. It would be better to imagine that everything came out all right and go read some other story at once.

First aboard the "air team" jet with the shot-out engine: Quigley's first act was to rush to Colette, Hugo, and Kevin and slice off the hypnotic collars that had kept them thinking they were freaks.

"Huh? What's going on?" said Mr. Incredible (the former Hugo).

"The last thing I remember was being at the Caligula Carnival," said Elastigirl (the former Colette).

"Me too," said Macroburst (the former Kevin). "My hair feels messy, too!"

"No time to explain," said Quigley. "Can any of you fly a jet? We're going down."

"I can," said Elastigirl confidently. First her head and arms and then the rest of her stretched into the cockpit. In no time she had the plane under control.

Mr. Incredible took one look at the situation outside and assumed command. "We're needed, Macroburst!"

He dived out of the door at the bottom of the plane, counting on Macroburst to give him wind-powered flight support.

Outside, Fiona and Jack-Jack were already flying, frantically catching people as they jumped from the burning dirigible: KitFox, Hector, Duncan, and Sir.

"Macroburst, help them get people into the jet. But first, set me down on that sub!" ordered Mr. Incredible.

One on the top of the sub, Mr. Incredible began to drive off the crushing tentacles with furious punches. Then he saw another tentacle about to grab Phil off the pirate ship. With a mighty leap he sprang onto the deck of that ship, smashed back that tentacle, and broke Phil free of the manacles around his wrists. The nearest pirates drew back, jabbering to each other in Finnish.

"That was totally wicked!" Phil said.

Syndrome flew out of the top of the Karimelita with his rocket boots, carrying Esmé Sansweet. "So long suckers! I'll get you next time!" he yelled.

Mr. Incredible snatched up a broken pirate-ship mast and flung it at Syndrome like a harpoon. It knocked the villainous couple far away.

Meanwhile, inside the Karimelita, there was near-panic from the Snow Scouts who were still chained to the oars.

"Don't panic!" yelled Dash. "We'll get you out of here!" He wasn't sure how he could keep that promise, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

Isadora had an idea. She chanted:  
"If for these chains there is a key,  
I ask you, bring it now to me!"

A key appeared in her hand. "Here, Dash!" she called and tossed it to him.

Dash used the key to unlock all the chains in an instant.

"Now we have to get up through that hole in the ceiling and out of here," said Dash.

"How?" asked Isadora.

Dash swiftly tied the chains together, spun the end rapidly around to build up momentum, and flung the end of the chain up through the hole.

Mr. Incredible, who had leaped back to the submarine with Phil, caught the end of the chain. "Hang on, kids, and I'll haul you out," he called down to them.

"I don't want to be rescued by cakesniffers!" said Kari Melita.

"Oh, shut up and grab the chain," barked Fernald, menacing her with his hooks.

Kari was cowed by this and obeyed.

Macroburst, Fiona, and Jack-Jack airlifted the submarine survivors up to the jet.

Down below, Captain Widdershins was fighting desperately with the sea-monster Surma. Summoning his last strength he exerted his power over water currents and a huge whirlpool formed. It swept the monster, the pirate ship, and himself away from the island and into the zone of the time warp; they all disappeared.

"Stepfather!" cried Fiona from the jet.

"Fifteen years from now, we'll be ready," Dash assured her. "We'll come back out here and kill that monster and save him."

"Really?" said Fiona.

"Really!" said Dash.

She gave him a powerful hug. Dash was a little worried she had taken what he said the wrong way, but this was no time to correct her.

Helen Parr called out from the cockpit, "Is everyone accounted for?"

"Where's Violet?" asked Quigley.

To answer that question, I need to go back to the moment when Violet was pushed out of the dirigible. This was the second time she had taken a fall from this height, so she didn't panic. She saw an eagle flying up with the sugar bowl in its claws. She caught it in a large force sphere and was trying to pull it toward her, with the idea of using the eagle's flight to arrest her fall, when something else flying very fast grabbed her from behind!

"Aaagh!" cried Violet in fright.

She lost concentration and released the force field around the eagle. The eagle immediately dropped the sugar bowl and flew up. When she recast the force field it caught only the sugar bowl, which provided no resistance when the thing that was holding her rocketed away at high speed. Violet almost passed out, but she maintained enough concentration to hold the force field on the sugar bowl so it wouldn't drop.

Before she knew it, she was landing at a familiar beach: Brainy Beach. There was Mr. Poe again, with his weapon drawn.

"I've got you this time," Poe said with a cough.

Another shoe was about to drop.


	29. Poe

"I've got you this time," Poe said with a cough.

"What do you want with me?" Violet asked, trying not to sound as afraid as she really was.

"I told you before, I'm trying to help you," said Poe.

"Yeah, right. That's why you sent this rocket thing to attack me and capture me. What is it, anyway?"

Poe reached over and pushed a button on the back of the device that was still gripping Violet. Its five metal gripping arms let go and it retracted into a ball. Poe picked it up.

"It looks a bit like a tiny Omnidriod," Violet said.

"It was made by the same guy. I told you, Count Buddy is a government contractor. He calls this a RetrievalBot."

"I knew it! You're on the same side as Syndrome!" Violet said.

"I'm working against him." Poe gave another loud cough, which was unusual for him.

"How did you get that thing to track me down?" Violet asked.

"Last time I saw you, you wouldn't listen. You turned your back on me. That's when I tossed a tracking clip that hooked into your hair. I got the bot to trail you from a distance, and to grab you when you were separated from the others."

"I was falling out of a dirigible when it grabbed me," said Violet.

"I saved your life?" Poe asked.

"I would have saved myself, or someone else would have," said Violet.

"Maybe," said Poe. "What matters is saving you now." He coughed again, a long spasm.

"What do you mean? You want to send me to an internment camp or worse, don't you?" asked Violet, referring to the villain village where Poe had last placed them.

"I had to do it," said Poe. "The law was clear. Supers who fight crime in public or are a public menace have to be interned. But then I found out something that changed everything. They kept me out of the loop because of my sympathies for you supers."

"What did you find out?" asked Violet.

"I don't have much time," said Poe. "I see you have the sugar bowl. You need to read what's in it."

The sugar bowl was on the beach beside Violet, still in a force field. She dropped the field and opened the bowl. Inside was a roll of microfilm.

"I should read this?" she asked.

Poe waved a hand dismissively. "Not that. That's a decoy, what the V.F.D. members thought they were protecting. The real secrets are in a microchip embedded in the base of the sugar bowl."

"How can I read it?" said Violet.

"You need an advanced computer. There's one at Prudence Prep," said Poe. "You need to get into Nero's office without him catching you. Watch out for him. In fact, watch out for everyone. No trust."

Poe gave another series of racking coughs. After he wiped his mouth, Violet saw there was blood on his sleeve.

"What happened to you?" Violet asked in horror.

"Got shot... Someone found out I was... going to help... supers," said Poe.

His voice was getting weaker. Violet saw blood seeping through the front of his coat.

"Mr. Poe, can you tell me who shot you?" Violet asked.

"I can..." said Poe, but he couldn't go on. He collapsed to the sand.

Violet felt for his pulse. Poe was gone.


	30. Programming

Meanwhile (there's that word again) the supers were trying to figure out what had happened to Violet. Had she fallen into the sea?

"I can't understand it," said Quigley in a rage. "How could you let Violet go out on the dirigible walkway and not keep watch on her?" He pointed at KitFox and Duncan.

"I was watching," said KitFox. "One moment the Man with a Beard and No Hair was inside with us, and the next moment he was out pushing Violet over the railing."

"You're lying," growled Dash. "You must have gone over to their side."

"She's not lying," said Duncan. "I saw the same thing. I can show you my memories; they never lie."

Duncan passed his photographic memories to all the supers; they pondered over them looking for clues.

"Did you notice?" said KitFox. "Duncan saw the accomplice of the Man with a Beard and No Hair reach for his pocket right before there was a skip in the memory."

Mr. Incredible stomped over to where the captured villains (Bruce, Fernald, Kari Melita, and Sir) had been tied up. He grabbed his former boss and lifted him up with one hand.

"Spill it!" he demanded. "What did you do to put Violet in danger? Answer me!"

Mr. Incredible pulled a miniature tape recorder out of the man's pocket. "Maybe this will answer my questions," he said, pushing the play button.

As far as the supers were concerned, it was as if Sir vanished in an instant. The ropes were on the floor, snapped into pieces.

"That was dumb," said Kari Melita.

"What did you see?" said Mr. Incredible.

"The tape started playing. It sounded like Vice Principal Nero's violin at school. You all just froze. Then he whispered something to you, Mr. Incredible. You tore off his ropes. He got Elastigirl to slow down the plane, then he got a parachute and jumped out. You can't remember any of it, can you?" she taunted.

"No, I can't," said Mr. Incredible, hanging his head.

"What a bunch of cakesniffers!" said Kari.

Helen Parr called from the cockpit, "We did lose airspeed, but now I've picked up a vapor trail leading from where we were, to the city. It may be from whoever took Violet. I'm following it."

Helen landed on the beach beside the lifeless body of Rick Poe. Violet's diving suit was on the sand beside him. They called for Violet, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Meanwhile (again!) Violet had taken Poe's advice. She had stripped off her diving suit and gone invisible. She found a bus stop and managed to sneak aboard a bus headed for the suburbs near Prudence Preparatory School. It wasn't easy dodging passengers as the bus filled up, but she managed by climbing into an unused luggage rack.

It was nearly time for Nero's evening violin concert when Violet got to Prudence Prep. She sneaked in just as Nero was leaving his office, violin in hand. She knew he would be occupied for several hours - giving her time to find the advanced computer and learn what was in the sugar bowl.

She found the computer in the corner behind Nero's desk. It appeared to be on but the screen wasn't glowing. She grabbed the mouse and wiggled it to see if the computer would respond.

"Please don't do that," said a soft voice. "If you want to communicate with me, pick up what you thought was a mouse and speak into it."

Violet jumped. She took a deep breath, picked up the input microphone, and asked, "A-are you the advanced computer?"

"Highly advanced," the computer responded. "Call me Hal."

Violet was about to ask Hal if it could read the sugar bowl when the office door suddenly opened. Bernie Nero rushed back in.

"Now, where did I put my violin bow?" he muttered to himself. "Oh, there it is on the desk."

Violet, still invisible, had dropped the input microphone and pulled back as far as she could.

"Mr. Nero?" said Hal in its gentle voice. "You asked me to tell you about unusual events that happen in your office while you are away."

"Yes, what happened?" said Nero gruffly. He seemed to be in a hurry to get to his concert.

"An invisible person was just speaking with me," said Hal. "Sorry, invisible person."

Bernie Nero gave Hal a pleased but evil grin. "Thanks, Hal." He played a peculiar set of notes on his violin.

Violet froze.


	31. Puppets

Violet froze, but only for an instant. Self preservation overrode the part of her mind that was trying to yield.

"Show yourself. Become visible," Vice-Principal Nero commanded.

Again Violet felt an inner struggle, but she was able to resist the temptation to obey.

"Hal, are you sure the person is still here?" Nero asked.

"Yes, Mr. Nero. My infra-red sensors detect a heat signature to my left," said Hal.

"It's true, then," said Nero. "Children of two supers develop resistance to the conditioning."

He moved toward her, arms outstretched. "You might as well give up, Violet Parr. I've got you cornered."

Violet created a force-field around herself. She walked out from behind the desk, forcing him back step by step.

"You won't get far," Nero said. "I'll call in agents..."

Suddenly the outside wall crashed in. Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl burst into the room.

"Oh my, would-be rescuers," sneered Nero. He played the violin notes again. "Break through the force-field and kill her."

Instead, Mr. Incredible clobbered Nero with a powerful punch that smashed his violin and knocked him out.

"Dad, Mom! You're yourselves again!" Violet rushed to them and hugged them. "How did you resist him?"

Bob Parr grinned. He reached up and removed something from his ears. "Earplugs," he explained.

Helen Parr also removed plugs from her ears. "Your father's old boss used that same violin music against us on the plane. We figured that Nero must know something, so we came here. I'm so glad you're safe!"

"Is everyone else all right?" Violet asked.

Dash zoomed in, carrying Jack-Jack. "Yeah! All the good guys made it. It was awesome."

"Zooper!" agreed Jack-Jack.

Fiona flew in behind him. "Except my stepfather. We won't know for fifteen years."

KitFox came in also, along with myself.

"This is my brother The Lemon," she said. "I called him to join us since it seems something major is going on that affects us all."

"We'd better get out of here," said Helen. "People may come to investigate the noise."

"Just a few minutes," said Violet. "I came here to get the sugar bowl secrets read, and I don't want to leave without that. I hope Hal the computer can read it."

"You saved the sugar bowl?" asked Dash. "Cool!"

"Dusowandwun?" asked Jack-Jack.

"Hal, were you named for the computer in '2001, a Space Odyssey'?" Violet translated.

"I was named after Halley Hogenson. She collects information for me in the Library of Records and tags it with key words to train my A.I. program," said Hal. "I hope she is all right. I have not received new input from her for days."

The Incredibles didn't have the heart to tell Hal that the Library of Records was burned down along with Hemoglobin Hospital.

Violet took the sugar bowl out from under her costume and brought it to Hal.

"Hal, there's a microchip embedded in the base of this sugar bowl. Can you read what's on it?"

"Yes, I have worked with such devices before," said Hal. "Place it on the inductive reading pad to my right." After Violet did this, Hal said, "The latest file added to the directory is called the Super Snippet File. Should I read that first?"

"Go ahead," said Violet.

"The Primary Weakness of Supers," Hal read aloud the words that also appeared on the screen. "Besides ordinary vulnerabilities that vary from super to super, all supers have been conditioned to respond when they hear a series of violin notes: B-sharp, A, C, and E-flat. They will obey when given commands, and they will forget about it completely afterward."

The next page showed the faces of Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl. "Here are two of our best subjects. They have been used for numerous covert ops against foreign and domestic enemies."

"NO!" Helen cried. Mr. Incredible looked horrified.

The next page showed a masked face of a young man. "This is Flamethrower, our only known failure. He had a resistance to memory-wiping and as a result turned against us. His ability to do flame-projection was inhibited by removing his hands. He would have been executed except that Count Buddy Pine spoke up for him and took charge of his retraining."

"Fernald!" said Fiona.

The next page came up, "For reasons discussed in other sugar-bowl files, the government decided that supers must be eliminated. We started by isolating them and getting them out of the public eye. Our agent, Jerome Sansweet, heroically risked his life in a 'suicide attempt' that Mr. Incredible would be sure to stop. The lawsuit Sansweet filed set off a wave of others, paving the way for the Super Relocation Act."

Next page: "The work of eliminating supers has been contracted to Pine Industries, with Count Buddy Pine as the lead contractor. For deniability, he will locate the supers and lure them into traps without our assistance. He may have tendencies toward grandstanding and he has a personal grudge against Mr. Incredible for not being allowed to be his sidekick fifteen years ago, but his parents assure us he is under control."

Next page: "The extermination of supers has been very successful so far. Many major supers such as Universal Man, Gazerbeam, and Vectress have been terminated. Some currently uncertain cases are circled on the next page."

"The next page is missing," Hal reported.

"I know what it was," said Violet. "It was the page we found in the Library of Records. It showed supers with their faces circled and it said 'There is at least one more survivor'. Now we know why."

All the supers had come into the room by this time, and all were in open-mouthed shock.

"We're puppets, maybe assassins," moaned Mr. Incredible.

"The government wants to kill us," said Quigley, "Why?"

"Hal, it said the reasons were in the other files," Violet said. "Would you open that one for us?"

"I'm sorry," said Hal. "Only the mainframe, Duchess R., has the key to read the encryption on those."

"Duchess R.?" I said. "She's a major V.F.D. sponsor. I just received an invitation to a masked ball at her home. I thought it would be too dangerous to go."

"We saw an acceptance to an invitation like that in Madame Lulu's files," said Violet.

"Who was it from?" I asked.

"There was no name, but I remember there was a little sketch of a dragonfly in the corner," Violet said.

"Beatrice!" I cried. "She's in danger!"


	32. Party

The disheartened supers left Nero's office, after tying up the unconscious Vice-Principal. They returned to the jet, which Helen Parr had landed in the athletic field. Helen unlocked the plane and let all the Snow Scouts out.

"You're free to go," she told them. "I suggest you call your parents, and any of you who are going to Prudence Prep should to try to transferred. This is not a good place. Kari, you're also free to go with them."

"I'm not going to forget this," said Kari Melita Spats in an spiteful tone.

"I think you probably will, soon," said Violet. She was remembering how Mr. Poe had erased Kari's memories once before.

They also dropped off 'Uncle' Bruce, though they left him tied up. Though he would admit nothing it seemed fairly certain he was a government agent.

Mr. Incredible untied Fernald. "We found out that all supers are in the same boat," he said. "If you want to join us, you're welcome. If you'd rather take your chances on your own..."

"I'll join you," said Fernald. "Why not? There's nothing for me anywhere else."

"I'm glad," said Fiona, hugging him. "Aye!"

"Let me stay, too. I want to be your sidekick!" said Phil to Mr. Incredible.

"Phil, you really should go back to your parents." Bob said.

Phil looked very disappointed and suddenly Bob remembered how Syndrome began.

"We won't be superheros anymore," said Bob. "We'll be hunted fugitives. If you still want to stay..."

"Being a hunted fugitive sounds great!" said Phil. "Of course I'll stay!"

Helen took the jet up and they flew out over the sea.

"What now?" said Mr. Incredible. "I think we should just get out of the country."

"We need to find out why the government wants to kill us," said Violet. "That means reading the rest of the sugar bowl messages."

"Going to Duchess R. when the authorities will be looking there? Too dangerous," said Elastigirl.

"If there's a big masked ball we could blend in," said Dash. "When is the ball?"

"Tonight," I said. "I have to go there anyway, to save Beatrice."

"Who is Beatrice, Lemon?" asked Duncan.

"Beatrice is Plasmabolt," I said. "She's a wonderful woman who loves the outdoors and shoots energy blasts, and I love her more than life itself. We would have married, but when the Relocation came she said she must keep her secret identity rigidly separated from her former super life. She sent me a book by carrier pigeon, breaking up with me."

"She was the fourth member of the Phantasmics," Macroburst said. "I wonder why Syndrome didn't try to catch her like the rest of us?"

"He must have tried, but if she kept strictly to her secret identity he would have had no clue to find her," I said. "According to the file we just saw, he had to find us on his own. But if she shows up at the ball tonight..."

"It's too risky. We can't go near government agents; they can hypnotize us at will," said KitFox. "Earplugs would be too much of a handicap to communication."

"Not all of us can be hypnotized," said Violet. "Nero said children of two supers can develop immunity. I already have."

"Gimmunty!" said Jack-Jack, which meant "I want to develop immunity too!"

"Dad, do you still have that tape that Sir used on us?" Dash asked.

The children took the tape to the back of the jet. After several exposures, Dash and Jack-Jack were no longer affected by the music.

Bob and Helen Parr were extremely worried by the idea of the children going on this mission, but it seemed there was no better choice to save Beatrice and read the sugar bowl.

"Someone needs to go with them who knows the layout of Duchess R.'s mansion," I said. "Let me go. I've been her guest many times."

"You can be turned against them," protested Mr. Incredible.

"My only super-power is the power to make things sour," I said. "I can't do much harm if I'm caught."

And that's how it happened that the Parr children and I were rowing on the lake that night near the mansion of the Duchess, keeping out of sight among the cattails. I beached the boat and we sneaked across the grounds: Violet invisible with Jack-Jack under her costume, Dash zipping by too fast to be noticed, and myself using V.F.D.-trained stealth skills. There seemed to be guards everywhere, but we eluded them.

I was wearing a bullfighter costume with a red cape, a thin mask, and shiny red shoes with fancy buckles so I could infiltrate the party. The children were in their super costumes, and they hoped to remain out of sight.

"I'm going straight down this hall to the main Reception Parlor where the ball is being held," I said.

"Any idea where the mainframe computer might be?" Violet asked.

"That staircase leads down to the basement level," I said. "Take a left, then go five doors down past the guest bedrooms. The computer room should be just past the last guest room. I never went in there, but I heard the hum of machines when I stayed here before."

"Jack-Jack, you go with The Lemon in case he needs help," said Violet. Violet and Dash both touched Jack-Jack to charge him up with their powers. I carried Jack-Jack under one arm and folded my cape over him.

Inside the Reception Parlor, the costume party was going full swing. Beside the ordinary costumes of Littlest Elves, eagles, and Incredibles' Deadly Vipers, many people had chosen super costumes. I knew most could not be real: Dynaguy, Thunderhead, Gazerbeam, and Stratogale were all dead or elsewhere.

A number of people dressed in scorpion costumes were walking through the crowd, staring at everyone. I guessed they must be government agents on the watch for supers.

Then I saw her, in her super costume which looked very much like a dragonfly: the woman the world called Plasmabolt. She appeared to be alone on the veranda - the word "veranda" is a fancy name for a porch. I slipped out onto the veranda and tried to give her a warning.

"Beatrice," I cried, just as the scorpion-clad agents spotted me, "Count Buddy is..."

"Don't call me that name in public," she snapped at me, protecting her secret identity to the last.

"Count Buddy is here!" cried Syndrome, rising up on his jet-boots from beyond the balcony. He was wearing his familiar black costume with the "S" on the chest, but his face was a mass of bruises and scars from the mast-harpoon Mr. Incredible had thrown at him.

Before Beatrice could react, he blasted her with a shot from his gauntlet which enveloped her in flame. I ran to her side but there was nothing I could do.

"Now you," he cried, aiming at me. "You V.F.D. fools have stolen my future. Esmé died in my arms after that harpoon attack. I'll kill you all, one-by..."

Before he got out the next word, Jack-Jack, who was close enough the Beatrice to absorb her power, shot him down with a plasma bolt. He died never knowing the woman he was avenging had been his deadly enemy, waiting for the chance to destroy him for killing her husband Frozone.

A stun-beam from one of the agents struck Jack-Jack from behind, knocking him out.

"Looks like Count Buddy's off this contract," said one of the agents to another. "We want these two alive, for now."

He pulled out a small tape recorder and pressed the play button. I was too much in shock to try to cover my ears.


	33. Parenting

Meanwhile, (the last time I'll use that word, I promise) the two older Parrs crept down the stairs, past the guest bedrooms, and into the computer room.

The room was tiny, just wide enough for Violet and Dash to stand side by side. There was an electrical hum from the walls and below the floor. Directly in front of them was a wide-screen television. A computer-generated woman's face appeared on the screen. The face resembled a woman who once appeared on television saying, "Their secret identity will be their only identity."

"Welcome," said the voice of the image. "I am Duchess R."

"I thought Duchess R. was a person," said Dash.

"There is a human agent who acts for me, but I am the real Duchess R. 'R' is for robot," said the voice.

"Hal told us you could read the sugar bowl files," said Violet.

"Yes. Just place the sugar bowl in the receptacle," said Duchess R.

A small door below the screen slid open. Violet slid the sugar bowl inside.

"You are sure you wish to see this? It may be traumatic," said Duchess R.

"It can't be worse than we've seen already," said Dash.

A movie began to play: "Classified Briefing for the National Supers Agency." It continued, "Research to increase our technological superiority against the Soviets is vital to national security. Dr. Gregor Anwhistle has made breakthroughs in genetic engineering, starting with simple fungi, then marine animals, then larger mammals."

The screen flashed images of the Anwhistle Aquatics center, the mushrooms from the Gargoyle Grotto, the gigantic Surma nautilus, and enhanced lions like the ones they had faced at the Caligula Carnival.

"The ultimate breakthrough, the genetic enhancement of human beings, has now been accomplished."

The screen showed rows of test tube in which embryos were growing.

"Out of thousands of experimental embryos, only a tiny percentage show superhuman mutations. The rest are discarded."

The screen showed a cluster of buildings in a scenic mountainous area where a waterfall fed into a lake. The children recognized it as the headquarters they had visited a few days ago.

"In the Mortality Mountains, we built the Vanguard Fetal Development center. Here the young supers will be raised, trained, and conditioned. The records of these experiments will be recorded in a microchip memory, embedded in a sugar bowl for concealment with easy access. Other scattered bases will be used to raise the supers we will chose for supervillains."

"Nooo!" cried Violet. "Mom and Dad were experiments? I can't believe it."

"I warned you it would be traumatic," said Duchess R.

"Show us the file about what they decided to do with the supers," said Dash.

"Report on the Termination of the Supers Project," filled the screen. "Although supers have been useful in certain covert operations, and the staged battles between 'superheroes' and 'supervillains' have been useful in distracting the public from other matters, supers are a national security risk. Many are unintelligent or psychologically unstable, and there is an additional risk."

The screen filled with an image from the wedding of Bob and Helen Parr.

"The breeding of two supers was set up as an experiment," said the recording. "We needed to know if their offspring would be super or normal. Just in case, that same day Agent Jerome Sansweet staged a suicide attempt to begin the isolation of supers through lawsuits. Tests on their first child showed she was a super with multiple powers. Even worse, she quickly developed immunity to conditioning."

The screen showed the infant Violet Parr in a testing laboratory. A scientist tried to give her a toy rattle and she pushed it away with a force-field.

"We were experiments too?" said Violet, feeling sick.

The recording went on: "This tipped the decision in favor of isolating the supers. The Sansweet lawsuit went ahead, and many more followed. During this time, there was an incident that confirmed our worst fears."

The screen showed Fernald in his super-costume.

"A young super named Flamethrower developed a resistance to mind-wiping. He learned too much and shared information with Splashdown, his 'stepfather'. (We assigned family groupings to many of the supers to improve their psychological adjustment). The two of them destroyed Anwhistle Aquatics and killed Gregor Anwhistle. Flamethrower was caught and disciplined, but Splashdown escaped. Splashdown and his 'stepdaughter', Stratogale, seemingly died in costume accidents soon afterward, but they may have faked their deaths to escape."

Pictures of Captain Widdershins and Fiona came up, both marked: "Possibly at large. Extremely dangerous."

"After this, we converted the isolation project into an extermination project, which we contracted out to Pine Industries. Agent Rick Poe, who was responsible for relocations, was not told of this new plan. He seemed to have too much sympathy with the supers."

Pictures of Count Buddy (in a business suit rather than in costume) flashed on the screen.

"Count Buddy Pine has developed a feasible plan for locating and destroying the supers without our direct involvement. It will take several years, but we expect no difficulties."

"That is the end," said Duchess R., cutting off the projection. "Given the information I have just seen, it is my duty to capture you."

Gas hissed into the room from ceiling vents and the two Incredibles went unconscious.


	34. Prisoners

I awoke first. The three Parr children and myself were behind bars in a dimly-lit room. I touched each of them gently on the shoulder and they started to wake up.

"Where are we, Lemon?" Dash asked.

"It may be a power-blocking cell," I said. "Like the one in the Villainous Fowl Devotees village. Try to do something with your super-speed."

Dash tried to run in place. "No good. I guess we're blocked."

"What happened with you and Jack-Jack?" Violet asked.

"Zndrome byebye," said Jack-Jack.

"Yes, Syndrome's dead," I said. "But I have a feeling he was the least of our problems."

"You can say that again," said Dash.

The door opened and a hooded man came in.

"A nice catch of supers," he said. "Bait to catch the rest."

"Is that why you kept us alive?" I asked.

"Yes. We want to find out from you where you were meeting the others after your mission. Then we can set an ambush."

"Who are you?" asked Violet.

The man lowered his hood. "I wonder if you can guess?"

Violet stared at him. "You look like the minister at our parent's wedding. I saw you in their wedding picture on the Quohog."

"I'm not a real minister. I'm a scientist, and I was simply setting up an experiment," said the man.

"To see what happened when two supers had children," said Dash.

"Yes. You three exceeded our expectations, or should I say, nightmares," said the man.

"Brrr!" said Jack-Jack, meaning "You give me the creeps!"

"You must be Gregor Anwhistle," I said.

"No! I'm his brother, Ike Anwhistle," he said. "My brother was killed in a fire by a rogue super. I'm completing his work and my revenge, by wiping all of you out."

"Aren't you supposed to be dead? Your wife thought you were," said Dash, thinking of Josephine Mode.

"I faked my death in a leech accident so that I could pursue my revenge in secret," Ike said.

Violet suddenly gasped. "So that's what Mr. Poe meant. I asked who shot him, and he said 'I can...', but what he was trying to say was 'Ike Anwhistle'."

"Yes, I shot Poe," said Anwhistle. "He was a traitor. He found out about the extermination plan and tried to help you. I know now he and Jerome Sansweet had gone soft on supers. I shot him, too."

"What did Mr. Sansweet have to do with it?" asked Dash hotly.

"He and another agent were supposed to guard the sugar bowl at the base on Mortality Mountain. While Sansweet was out on the trail the Pine parents attacked. The agent threw the sugar bowl into the stream to save it. Before he was killed, he just had just enough time to leave a coded message for Sansweet."

"The Verbal Fridge Dialog," said Violet.

"You children are much too clever for your own good," said Anwhistle. "You ate some of the message, but Sansweet learned enough to track the sugar bowl. Either that, or Quigley Rydinger told him the message when Sansweet rescued him from the stream."

"He rescued Quigley?" Violet asked.

"He won Quigley's trust, enough so that Quigley sent him a copy of a telegram which told him where you would be. He sent a tip to Poe, and he also tipped off the Female Finnish Pirates about where to find the sugar bowl. He wanted the truth to come out."

"But why did Count Buddy want the sugar bowl?" asked Dash.

"He'd really blown it with that stupid save-the-city-from-a-giant-robot stunt. We tried to cover for him for a while, with that story in the paper that it was Count Brody and putting all the blame on you three. But he was still unreliable, doing all sorts of public revenge stunts that failed to kill you. So we froze his assets and canceled his contract."

"So when he killed Beatrice tonight it wasn't for money?" I asked, my eyes filling with tears as I thought of her.

"Pure revenge. The agents who caught you heard him say it was for Esmé."

I had heard the same thing, but it hadn't registered through the shock.

"But what did that have to do with the sugar bowl?" Dash asked.

"He wanted the secrets so he could blackmail the government and get some protection for himself," said Anwhistle.

I wept for Beatrice. There was a sour taste in my mouth. Suddenly I remembered my power sometimes works that way when I'm upset. But I shouldn't have been able to use it...

"I must be immune to power blocking," I thought. "They never cared because my power is so useless. But I touched Jack-Jack before we were put in here..."

"So you see, we know everything. There's no point in resisting," said Anwhistle.

I sent a sour taste into the mouths of the three Incredibles. Jack-Jack gave me a quick glance and I knew he understood the implications of what I had done. Jack-Jack's face twisted as he concentrated all his power.

KAWHAMM! A mighty blast of the plasma energy Jack-Jack had absorbed from Beatrice hit the bars. The whole wall of bars blew out and smashed into Anwhistle.

We didn't stay to find out if Anwhistle was just stunned or if he was killed. Jack-Jack morphed dragonfly wings, a part of Beatrice's super-equipment he had also managed to copy. He flew to the nearest wall and blasted through it to the outside. Violet formed a large force-ball around all of us, Jack-Jack attached himself around my back as a set of wings, and Dash ran with the force-ball until we had left every pursuer behind.

We rejoined the others and soon we were streaking out of the country in the jet. I doubt we'll return in my lifetime.

Postscript

We have settled in a South American country and we are keeping as low a profile as we can. Some of us, like myself, would be content to live here in peace. Others, like KitFox, want to build up our numbers and eventually strike back at our enemies. She is pushing for the strongest supers to marry, since only children of two supers are sure to be resistant to mind-control. Her ideal matches for the Parr children are the ones Captain Widdershins suggested: Dash with Fiona, and Violet with Fernald. The young people seem to have other ideas, especially Violet and Quigley. As for Jack-Jack, KitFox and Macroburst have gotten together and there may be a match for him by the time he grows up.

I think only a super could manage to read to the end of this sad and horrifying tale, so if you are reading this you must be one. I used a forged identity to post this story to a fan-fiction site in hopes of reaching supers still in hiding. If you want to join us, go to the Statue of Victorious Financiers at midnight and unscrew the left hand of the third financier. There I have placed further instructions. Hope to see you soon.

With all due respect,  
The Lemon


End file.
